TWELFTH NIGHT. To 7 March.
London.
TWELFTH NIGHT
by William Shakespeare,.
Wyndhams Theatre To 7 March 2009.
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 2.30pm & Sun 3pm.
Runs
TICKETS: 0844 482 5120 (24hr).
www.donmarwestend.cpm/www.delfontmackintosh.co.uk ((£1.50 booking fee per ticker by ‘phone or online).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 14 December.
Comedy inextricably linked with melancholy.
It could be called Shakespeare’s seasonal play, in title and first production, but Twelfth Night’s also candidate for the finest comedy in the English language. And its extremely difficult to realise in performance, with great actors having inhabited every main role, and multiple directorial intelligences having played over its five acts.
Then there’s a mix of moods from melancholy fatalism to knockabout comedy, and the ambiguities. Like Shylock, Malvolio is either villain, clown or victim – or all three. Michael Grandage, in the second of a year-long quartet of Donmar productions at the larger-scale Wyndhams, shows his instinctive theatrical intelligence in linking the physical storm which wrecks Viola and her twin Sebastian separately on Illyria’s coast, with the emotional violence of Duke Orsino (Mark Bonnar, his character clearly into the grey of deep middle-age ) in his frustrated passion for the bereaved Olivia.
As the storm crashes into Orsino’s famous opening, the musical food of love a string quartet with modern dissonances, so designer Christopher Oram’s staging combines high walls enclosing the Illyrians with suggestions of shipboard in the flooring.
This isn’t a bright, light Twelfth Night. Distress is clear in many characters, and those who seem certain have their certainties upset. With Indira Varma’s stiff, black-clad Olivia it happens soon as Zubin Varla’s Feste (delightfully adept with singing voice and guitar) cheers her then sits companionably by her side. With Derek Jacobi’s Malvolio, who clearly believes the upper reaches of the atmosphere were intended exclusively for his nose, it never happens.
Careful elisions and cuts allow a brisk playing-time, and mean the scene of Malvolio’s imprisonment and recall are mercifully trimmed. Having found new humour even in the letter-reading scene – just watch him trying to smile – Jacobi turns the final, vengeful line into an emotional voyage from spite through injured pride and humiliation, broadening from Feste to everyone.
Victoria Hamilton’s a deep-feeling Viola, Alex Waldmann suitably contrasted as her outer Twin, but with a more glib manner, Ron Cook a bruiser from Sit Toby’s first coming in, and Guy Henry a wraith-like Sir Andrew, in a fine performance of a character who never actually seems to quite exist.
Orsino: Mark Bonnar.
Curio: Norman Bowman.
Valentine: James Howard.
Viola: Victoria Hamilton.
Sea Captain/Priest: Ian Drysdale.
Sir Toby Belch: Ron Cook.
Maria: Samantha Spiro.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek: Guy Henry.
Feste: Zubin Varla.
Olivia: Indira Varma.
Malvolio: Derek Jacobi.
Antonio: Lloyd Hutchinson.
Sebastian: Alex Waldmann.
Director: Michael Grandage.
Designer: Christopher Oram.
Lighting: Neil Austin.
Sound: Fergus O’Hare.
Composer: Julian Philips.
Choreographer: Ben Wright.
Wigs/Hair: Richard Mawbey.
Fight director: Terry King.
Text consultant: Russell Jackson.
Associate director: Amelia Sears.
Associate designers: Andrew Edwards, Morgan Large.
Assistant designer: Richard Kent.
2008-12-15 10:39:35