TWELFTH NIGHT.
TWELFTH NIGHT: William Shakespeare.
RSC: Main House, Tkts: 0870 609 1110.
Runs: 2h 50m, one interval.
Review: Rod Dungate, 13 June 2005.
Many good things to watch, but over-all, uninspired.
It's disorientating watching this production; on one hand you have the sub-plot lot (Sir Toby, A Aguecheek, Maria et al) who have weight and create highly individual performances, on the other you have the main plot lot (Orsino, Olivia, Viola et al) who are all so lightweight you worry a draught will blow them away and who (other than by gender, which is confused enough in this play) are difficult to tell apart.
The result is a production that holds your attention but fails to raise your spirit.
Has the production suffered through its two cast changes due to ill health you wonder? It's hard to see how. Clive Wood (who took over from Nicky Henson) is one of the best performances in the play he's a Toby Belch who clearly has aristocracy running in his veins. It's just a rather uninspired production, as if the play's been left alone to look after itself. And despite some stylish clothes, it lacks style.
Wood's Sir Toby is big, but never over the top. Funny, attractive and irritating in equal measure. John MacKay's Sir Andrew is a perfect complement, his skinny clownlike character given free rein but never let out of control. However, stars are really due, in this triumvirate, to Meg Fraser's Maria energetic, clever, authoritative and warm.
Richard Cordery's Malvolio while I have seen funnier mixes nastiness and dignity in a way I don't think I've seen before; it's intriguing and in it's own way, riveting. I very much like his low-key dignified ending. Forbes Masson's white-faced, jazz singing Feste has many lovely moments too. In a touching detail, during the Feste/ Toby/ Andrew/ Maria drinking scene, as Maria plots against Malvolio, we see Feste much put out and understand why he absents himself from the box tree scene.
Set alongside these, Olivia, Orsino, Viola, and Sebastian (Aislin McGuckin, Barnaby Kay, Sally Tatum and Gurpreet Singh) are pale shadows. They create their characters well enough, but achieve little to make them special, to fill them out. Nor, dare I say it, to release the poetry.
Designer Tom Piper puts himself spectacularly centre stage in the play's closing moments as single sheets of paper flutter, like butterflies escaped from the Stratford farm, to the ground from the flies. How designer and director, Michael Boyd, think anyone is going to be listening to actors elsewhere on the stage while this happens beats me.
Orsino: Barnaby Kay.
Curio: Alan Morrissey.
Valentine: Kevin Trainor.
Viola: Sally Tatum (took over from Kananu Kirimi).
Sea Captain: Christopher Obi.
Sir Toby Belch: Clive Wood.
Maria: Meg Fraser.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek: John MacKay.
Feste: Forbes Masson.
Olivia: Aislin McGuckin.
Malvolio: Richard Cordery.
Fabian: Peter Bygott.
Antonio: Neil McKinven.
Sebastian: Gurpreet Singh.
Priest: Christopher Robert.
Sailor/ Officer: Eke Chukwu.
Orsino's Man/ 1st Officer: Barrie Palmer.
Directed by: Michael Boyd.
Designed by: Tom Piper.
Lighting Designed by: Vince Herbert.
Music Composed by: Jon Woolf and Sianed Jones.
Sound Designed by: Andrea J Cox.
Movement by: Liz Ranken.
Aerial Movement by: Gavin Marshall.
Fights by: Terry King.
Assistant Director: Hannah Eidinow.
Music Director: John Woolf.
Company Voice Work by: Lyn Darnley, Alison Bomber and Jan Haydn Rowles.
2005-06-15 20:31:59