What You Will at Central Square Theater

What You Will takes Shakespeare's source material in a fascinating new direction while keeping its core intact. This "inspiring" (The New York Times) Bedlam production features music from the likes of Billie Holiday, Dusty Springfield and French pop chanteurs, and a cast whose pristine white clothes become smeared with lipstick, yellow paint and "their own hearts' blood" (The Wall Street Journal) as the play progresses. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night -- which tracks the misadventures of shipwrecked twins Viola and Sebastian -- is famously filled with unrequited love, mistaken identity, romantic mischief, love triangles, deception and some of the Bard's wittiest wordplay. The Central Square Theater in Cambridge hosts the gender-bending comedy alongside Bedlam's Twelfth Night, an alternate interpretation by the same group. The New York Times proclaims "though each takes its own (and surprisingly slight) liberties with the original script, they arrive at the same resonant, wonder-inspiring conclusion."