twelfth night
TWELFTH NIGHT, Bell Shakespeare Company at the Playhouse Theatre, Sydney Opera House, October 28-November 27, 2010.
Director Lee Lewis took a big risk in deciding to update, cut and refashion Twelfth Night in the way she did, but her boldness and the consistency of her adherence to a good and inventive idea is fully justified. She was right to be confident and with the creative team of designer Anna Tregloan and lighting designer Luis Pampolha she's pulled it off to the n-th degree.
We’ve all sat – miserably – through an “I know what! Let’s set it on Gilligan’s Island and make it, like, um neo-disco; that will be soooo fun” approach to Shakespeare, but fear not. Lewis’s talent and experience means she was not about to be caught out by germs of ideas that would never grow into something worthwhile. By crafting a world within a world within the play, as a bedraggled mob of survivors from the Victorian bushfires morph into Twelfth Night’s characters cast ashore on the coast of Illyria, Lewis illuminates the darker elements of Shakespeare’s least comedic comedy that are often overlooked. The result is a total environment, physically, emotionally and historically, and a logical lead in to historical characters and the comedy that arises from mistaken identity, missing siblings, unrequited and misplaced love and the biggest mound of discarded clothing ever assembled on the Playhouse stage.
So, the aftermath of the shipwreck becomes the aftermath of the dreadful bushfires – with the same scarifying effects on the motley bunch of stumbling trauma victims. As well as a fine approach to the play, Lewis also assembled an equally fine cast, it includes newcomer (to the mainstream Sydney stage) Andrea Demetriades, who makes a piteous and brave Viola as she searches for her brother, and on assuming the identity of the boy Cesario, an attractive proposition for the lady Olivia. Max Cullen anchors the production as the bedraggled, exhausted old man – morphing into Feste – whose weary eyes still twinkle sweetly despite, or perhaps even because of, everything he’s witnessed in his long life.
As the lady Olivia, Kit Brookman is a revelation. Eschewing any suggestion of drag or caricature in his portrayal, there is a strong sense of watching a “real” Shakespearean boy-girl actor at work. He inhabits the character rather than assuming it with costume and makeup; in a strong cast he is a stand-out.
The thoughtfully sombre opening of the play also carries through into the other characters, so that Malvolio, Maria, Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Sir Toby Belch (Ben Wood, Brent Hill, Adam Booth and Elan Zavelsky) are also less caricature and more flesh-and-blood than usual. Therefore, when they fall victim to their own ridiculousness (yellow hose and cross garters, for instance) the laughter is tempered by pity and rare understanding of who they actually are, and why.
The hopeless square dance of unrequited love is also more poignant than usual – and therefore funnier too – with Olivia mad for Cesario/Viola; Viola desperate for the handsome Orsino (Zavelsky), who finds himself curiously drawn to the lad who is his new employee, while he also entertains conventional feelings for Olivia. And then all’s well that ends well when Viola’s twin brother Sebastian (Booth) returns from the missing presumed dead to secure Olivia’s affection.
In the end, the story that begins in darkness and torchlight, as lost survivors search for their lives and meaning, reaches a charmingly buoyant and dazzling conclusion. The scent of optimism and joy over-rides the stink of smoke and sadness and humanity is restored. Shakespeare would have been well pleased.
