Reviewed by James Karas
The 2017 Stratford Festival
opened with the usual fanfare and a production of Twelfth Night directed by
Martha Henry with Graham Abbey Associate Director.
The production must be judged a
mixed success. There were sparks of humour, some fine performances and a number
of imaginative touches by Henry. There were also flat performances, tone-deaf
delivery of iambic pentameters and understated performances where exuberance
was more appropriate.
Let’s start with the positives.
Geraint Wyn Evans and Tom Rooney got the juicy roles of Sir Toby Belch and Sir
Andrew Aguecheek and they made use of all the comic latitude that Shakespeare
gives them. Belch is always drunk, boisterous and funny. Rooney’s Aguecheek
with the flaxen hair, his attempts at dancing and wooing is the perfect foolish
knight. The duel between Aguecheek and Viola, engineered by Belch and Fabian is
hilariously choreographed.
Members of the company in Twelfth Night. Photography by
Cylla von Tiedemann.
Lucy Peacock with that
unmistakable twang in her voice makes an amusing and effective Maria. Brent
Carver is a funny Feste the fool when he is not rushing through his lines.
Sarah Afful plays Viola who
dresses up as Cesario who falls in love with Orsino and Olivia falls in love
with her because she thinks she is a he. Her voice and her intonation must be
full of feeling. When she addresses Olivia, she should be shy, effusive and display
such emotion that Olivia falls head over heels in love with her. She does not
show much of that until the latter part of the play.
The beautiful Olivia of Shannon
Taylor is more convincing in her emotional rush towards Cesario but she is a
bit understated in my view. She comes fully alive in the later scenes. Michael
Blake does a good job as Sebastian.
E. B. Smith’s Duke Orsino looks
like a law-and-order ruler rather than lovesick man who cannot take no for an
answer from Olivia even after being repeatedly rebuffed. Shakespeare makes it
clear that Orsino is besotted with Olivia but Martha Henry has downgraded his
ardor considerably.
The most problematic and
interesting role in Twelfth Night is that of Malvolio, the steward in Olivia’s
household. He is censorious, full of self-love, domineering, ambitious and
foolish. He is a perfect target for ridicule and revenge by his underlings or
those he wants to consider as his inferiors. The vengeance taken on him by
Belch, Aguecheek and Feste goes beyond ridicule into serious mistreatment and
hence the problem with the character of Malvolio.
From left: Brent Carver as Feste, Tom Rooney as Sir Andrew
Aguecheek and Geraint Wyn Davies as Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night.
Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann.
Henry has Rod Beattie play the
role flat. He should be imperious and condescending when he belittles or
rebukes members of the household. Instead, he is almost business-like. When he
reads Maria’s letter and convinces himself that Olivia wants to marry him, his
performance should be modulated so that we can laugh at him for his
foolishness. He reads the letter almost matter-of-factly. Even when he is locked
up in the dungeon, he displays very little emotion or distress when he asks (it
should be begs) Feste for ink and paper. Feste shows us how Malvolio spoke to
him in the final scene of the play when he reads Malvolio’s letter like a
madman. We know that Beattie can do much better and this performance was a
waste of his talent.
Henry made some minor changes to
the text allowing for some entrances and exits that gave us some context. For
example, we see Olivia crying on the balcony as Belch and Aguecheek make their
first entrance.
The costumes by Designer John
Pennoyer are from sometime in the past with Orsino’s servants wearing black
wigs and black clothes. No issue with the costumes.
When you read the cast list, you
will notice half a dozen named attendants who wait on Orsino and Olivia. Try
figuring out who is who. In the text they are listed as “Attendants” but Henry
seems to have decided to give them names even though we have no idea who they
are.
We end where we began. Some
sparks, some imaginative touches, some genuine laughter and some flat patches.
______
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare opened on May 29
and will continue in repertory until October 21, 2017 at the Festival Theatre, 55 Queen Street, Stratford,
Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca
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