Twelfth Night – REVIEW

Arguably Shakespeare’s greatest comedy, it is also one of his most complex, dealing with identity and gender shifts, love, loss and the navigating of the spaces in between.

After a flash of lightning and a sharp crack of thunder, director Heather Fairbairn sets a cracking pace from the get go as Feste (Tomas Kantor) is alone onstage playing the music of Sarah Blasko.

In the kingdom of Illyria a young woman named Viola (Alfie Gledhill) is washed ashore after a storm, while not far away Duke Orsino (Garth Holcombe) is listening to music as he pines for Lady Olivia (Ursula Mills).

Mourning her twin brother Sebastian (Isabel Burton), presumed drowned, Viola adopts the male identity of Cesario to gain employment with Orsino, with whom she falls in love with.

The focus moves to Olivia’s court where we meet Malvolia (Jane Montgomery Griffiths), the vain and pompous steward of the household, along with Sir Toby Belch (Keith Agius) and Sir Andrew (Mike Howlett), guests celebrating the final night of Christmas.

Belch has some great lines as he conjures more drinks out of Sir Andrew, who always pays.

What follows is even more complex as relationships turn and transform, always with stunning outcomes and great hilarity.

For once the gender reversals are not forced, being an essential part of Shakespeare’s original text, and help place this production firmly into current times.

Fairbairn’s direction does not let up the fast paced slapstick approach but manages to skilfully insert powerful soliloquies such as Malvolia’s “I may command where I adore” which proved to be a showstopper.

As Malvolia, Griffiths has the meatiest role of the play, and one which she revels in to the delight of the audience.

The  slapstick physicality displayed by Howlett is worthy of the best comedian or circus performer, and works well against Agius’s Belch, who is plotting against everyone.

As the Fool/Feste, Kantor gives a master class in movement and song which culminates with him being centre stage at the play’s dramatic ending.

Gledhill is never less than commanding as Viola as he navigates across gender lines and the rapidly shifting romantic focuses.

Mills’s Olivia undergoes one of the play’s biggest character arcs as she transforms from a state of mourning at the plays opening to being a young woman blooming in love towards the end.

Chrissy Mae’s Antonio is the one character who displays a same sex affection as he pursues Sebastian’s affection.

Amy Hack’s character Maria is central to the play’s outcome as it is she who writes a love letter to Malvolia with devastating results.

Set designer Charles Davis has kept the staging simple by employing a simple but highly effective scrim to differentiate between the inside and outside worlds, while a bare tree stump becomes the main onstage prop, along with an old upright piano which is used effectively by Feste and Malvolia.

Davis also doubles as costume designer combining historical and modern designs that blend styles in much the way that the characters blend and bend, especially when Malvolia makes her powerful declarative breakout in the second half.

Verity Hampson’s lighting works well with the scrim, especially when the outside becomes the inside and at the play’s dramatic conclusion.

Sound is an important element under David Bergman’s direction as it has to handle Kantor’s delivery of Blasko’s smokey blues based music across numerous set-ups.

Bell Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is an exercise in how to bring a 400-year-old play into modern times without essentially changing its original intent.

 Until November 19

Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, Bennelong Point

www.bellshakespeare.com.au/twelfth-night