|  | Directed by
Lindsay
PosnerCast
Orsino,
Duke of Illyria
Jo
Stone-Fewings Viola
(Cesario)
Zoe Waites Olivia,
a countess
Matilda Ziegler
Sir Toby Belch
Barry Stanton Maria
Alison Fiske Sir Andrew Aguecheek
Christopher
Good Feste
Mark Hadfield Malvolio
Guy Henry Fabian
Wayne Cater Sebastian
Ben Meyjes Antonio
Joseph
Mydell |
| | |
| | | The Barbican Theatre
Royal Shakespeare Company
18 December - 9 March 2002 | | No one who has seen Guy Henry as King John in the concurrent RSC production of that play can have failed to relish the prospect of seeing him as Malvolio, expecting his comic genius to find proper room for exercise here. Everything in Shakespeare's enchanting and uproarious comedy of tangles – whose source lies in one thing: Viola's decision to disguise herself as a boy after being shipwrecked on the shores of Illyria – tends to humour: it is open day for several kinds of clown, and in this production Mark Hadfield as Feste the fool, Barry Stanton as Sir Toby Belch and Christopher Good as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, give outstanding performances as such. But this Malvolio, though he is funny when he finds what he supposes is Olivia's letter, when he dresses in yellow stockings and cross-garters, and when he grins relentlessly in her ladyship's presence, is in Guy Henry's rendering a strikingly sober and even faintly tragic figure – introducing a dark, hurt, vulnerable tone into the ground-note of the play, which deepens it, and provides the shadow without which the rest of the action would be too light. The device surprised my expectations: but it worked, and I take my hat off to Lindsay Posner and Guy Henry for it.
Indeed the contrast works exceedingly well, for the comedy both of the situation and of the riotous figures centred upon Sir Toby reaches high relief against the (not undeserved, of course) injury to Malvolio, whose parallel (there are always parallels in Shakespeare) is the supposed injury Sebastian gives his faithful friend and follower Antonio, in a by-play of the drama. Sebastian is Viola/Cesario's twin, so when Antonio, thinking that she is he, asks her to return the purse he had given her brother, and is offered a mere few coins in return, he is profoundly hurt. His offended love, and Malvolio's humiliated suffering, are reminders of the harm done by mistake, mischance, drink, thoughtlessness and unkindness.
For all the others there is a happy ending to be anticipated. Orsino loves Olivia and Viola loves Orsino and is in turn – in her disguise as the boy Cesario – loved by Olivia. And Orsino loves Cesario too, without realising that it is proper love for a woman which is unconsciously yeasting itself up in him, a love more real than the assumed infatuation with which he amuses himself over Olivia. And Antonio loves Sebastian, and Sebastian, when courted passioantely by Olivia when she thinks he is his twin Viola/Cesario, is instantly smitten with her in return. Confusions of course ensue, and both multiply and complexify as the play progresses, almost to the very end: but then the twins meet again, the muddles and amazements of the onlookers are suddenly resolved, and with equal suddenness result in no fewer than three weddings – between the Duke and Viola, the countess and Sebastian, and Sir Toby and Maria.
As noted it is Feste, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew who steal the show – the first two especially – but they are admirably supported by Alison Fiske as Maria, Jo Stone-Fewings as Orsino and of course Guy Henry as Malvolio. The disappointment is Zoe Waites as Viola. She is abrupt and hurried in her rendition of girl-playing-a-boy, holding herself stiffly from the neck down and acting with her head, like a nodding dog in the back of a car. The usually impeccable RSC casting fails here, for even if this Viola/Cesario were less anxious and jittery, and portrayed something more like the person in the text of the play – a clever, perceptive, quick-witted, self-possessed girl who, when cross-dressed, makes a boy so ravishingly pretty that the Duke finds himself unable to part with him/her except as ambassador to Olivia – Zoe Waites would just be too short and (when her hair is plastered down like Sebastian's) too plain. How could the graceful Countess Olivia fall in love with a little puerile atomy who stutters and stumbles? How could Orsino be distracted from his hobby of being head-over-ears infatuated unless his new page were seductive in half a dozen ways at once?
But so much for a minor complaint. This is a wonderful evening of theatre, as RSC Shakespeare performances almost invariably are; and since we all know that laughter is healthy, this production should be on NHS prescription. Perhaps the greatest compliment to be paid to the production lies in the fact that the parties of school children present (this must be a GCSE year for Twelfth Night) were buzzing with pleasure and excitement in the foyers afterwards – music to the theatre-lover's ears, and a sign of good hope for the future?
AC Grayling |
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