July 8, 2008
Twelfth Night, like most of Shakespeare's best plays, is an unwieldy piece of work, full of contradictions and implausibilities. The Oxford Shakespeare Company's production, currently on in the Wadham gardens, has a novel way of handling some of the play's difficulties: where they get in the way of the fun, they are simply chopped out. The director, Bill Barkes-Jones, notes in the programme that 'where the script is in danger of losing the audience with once-wonderful humour that we are in danger of no longer understanding, we can move swiftly on to the parts that still entertain and touch us the most.' This swiftness is the production's strength and its weakness. The text is cut significantly, and the play barrels along with engaging comic momentum. However, in the elision of some of the text's difficulties and extravagances, emotional effect is lost. This is not a production that means to make its audience work hard. But the gusto of the actors and a number of bright and unusual touches of character development make it a consistently engaging show.
The play is set by an imagined and timeless English seaside, in which Olivia reads Cosmopolitan in fly-eye sunglasses, Malvolio trades a top hat for a bright yellow thong, and Viola appears disguised in ruff, doublet and hose. It's a clever idea. The sense of holiday leisure helps to explain the idleness of Orsino and Olivia, who seem to have nothing to do but brood romantically; the anachronistic costuming tips a wink to the audience, admitting that none of what happens onstage makes a lick of sense.
This levity also gives the production something to do with Antonio and Sebastian. Both characters often prove troublesome onstage, their emotions inexplicable and sudden. This production deals with them by giving Sebastian (Oliver Gartside) a puppyish eagerness, and by turning Antonio into a puppet - a truly terrifying beady-eyed puppet in a sailor suit, manned by Tom Walker (who also plays Feste). Sebastian is not far from being a puppet himself, but it works: his instant swooning adoration of Olivia makes more theatrical sense than any attempt I've seen to force this moment into the mould of realism. I was less sure about Antonio. Walker voices him melodramatically, mocking the blunt and almost ludicrous intensity of Antonio's lines. However, without that intensity, there is little point in Antonio being there at all except as a plot device. The puppet was a quirky idea, but not one that solved any problems.
The production's other innovations were more successful. Kali Peacock's Olivia, in particular, got a lot out of a difficult role. Played as a forceful lady of leisure, fuming rather than heartbroken over Viola's resistance, and with a penchant for giggling, she got some of the best laughs of the night. James Lavender's Malvolio had an unusual loony energy, and his love for Olivia was played as genuine, if a little naïve; when he decides that the love letter must certainly be for him, he has to ask the audience for a moment while he tears up. And the music, always a crucial part of a Twelfth Night, is beautifully done. All the songs are performed a capella, and Walker's strong-voiced Feste shapeshifts his way through them, going seamlessly from Elizabethan catches to Sinatra.
It was an engrossing and enjoyable production, and while it didn't attempt to make you feel, it did a great deal to make you laugh.
The play is set by an imagined and timeless English seaside, in which Olivia reads Cosmopolitan in fly-eye sunglasses, Malvolio trades a top hat for a bright yellow thong, and Viola appears disguised in ruff, doublet and hose. It's a clever idea. The sense of holiday leisure helps to explain the idleness of Orsino and Olivia, who seem to have nothing to do but brood romantically; the anachronistic costuming tips a wink to the audience, admitting that none of what happens onstage makes a lick of sense.
This levity also gives the production something to do with Antonio and Sebastian. Both characters often prove troublesome onstage, their emotions inexplicable and sudden. This production deals with them by giving Sebastian (Oliver Gartside) a puppyish eagerness, and by turning Antonio into a puppet - a truly terrifying beady-eyed puppet in a sailor suit, manned by Tom Walker (who also plays Feste). Sebastian is not far from being a puppet himself, but it works: his instant swooning adoration of Olivia makes more theatrical sense than any attempt I've seen to force this moment into the mould of realism. I was less sure about Antonio. Walker voices him melodramatically, mocking the blunt and almost ludicrous intensity of Antonio's lines. However, without that intensity, there is little point in Antonio being there at all except as a plot device. The puppet was a quirky idea, but not one that solved any problems.
The production's other innovations were more successful. Kali Peacock's Olivia, in particular, got a lot out of a difficult role. Played as a forceful lady of leisure, fuming rather than heartbroken over Viola's resistance, and with a penchant for giggling, she got some of the best laughs of the night. James Lavender's Malvolio had an unusual loony energy, and his love for Olivia was played as genuine, if a little naïve; when he decides that the love letter must certainly be for him, he has to ask the audience for a moment while he tears up. And the music, always a crucial part of a Twelfth Night, is beautifully done. All the songs are performed a capella, and Walker's strong-voiced Feste shapeshifts his way through them, going seamlessly from Elizabethan catches to Sinatra.
It was an engrossing and enjoyable production, and while it didn't attempt to make you feel, it did a great deal to make you laugh.