Randuwa II: Theater Catch-up #1: "Twelfth Night" at Shakespeare Theatre Company

Just got in from an evening at Shakespeare Theatre Company in DC and their current production of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night". It's one of his comedies, which like others he wrote involve mistaken identities and criss-crossed lovers, the sort of plot twists everyone else has been copying ever since. The story of this play starts with a shipwreck that leaves but one apparent survivor, Viola, who, believing her twin brother has perished sets about creating a newlife for herself in Illyria. She deigns to disguise herself as a man in order ot serve in the house of the powerful Prince Orsino, but as fate would have itfalls in love with him in a love that must remain unrequited. He in turn is in love with the beautiful Olivia to whom he send Viola (now Cesario) to woo her for himself, but Olivia is indifferent to Orsino and falls in love with Cesario! Then Viola/Cesario's twin brother shows up having NOT drowned, and mush confusion ensues egged on by a naughty maid, an all-knowing fool, Olivia's steward, and two unwelcome houseguests in the care of Olivia. It's really quite a rollicking affair...er, affairS!

In keeping with Shakespeare Theatre Company's ethos, the whole production is set in a completely diferent situation and time. It's a present day Airport Terminal and the action begins with a plane crash instead of a shipwreck. I have to admit that having never seen this play produced, my incentive to go was to just see it performed, and the whole airport terminal thing was just whackiness to me. But I was wrong. The innovative setting was used to maximum effect including a very elaborate introduction complete with a flurry of activity in what for all intents and purposes was an airport waiting area in a major terminal complete with the ubiquitous holiday tree as center piece. The show's fool, Feste (Heath Saunders), was also its main troubadour. He serenaded the preparation for take-off with a beautiful accoustic version of Magnetic Fields' "The Book of Love". It was a prelude to the play that aroused an ovation of applause from the audience.

The cast was truly wonderful, and while I could have hoped for more from some of them, many members dove into their roles with spellbinding verve. Most notably I loved Hannah Yellands take on Olivia, Jim Lichtscheidl's uber fay Sir Andrew Aquecheek, and Derek Smith's beguiled and betrayed performance of Olivia's Steward, Malvolio. It must be said that singling out these three is no criticism of the rest of this fine cast. No matter how fine the harvest, some apples will always rise to the top of the barrel.

If there was one aspect of this energetic and otherwise well-conceived production that I would have liked to have seen handled differently, it would be in the final scene when Malvolio is released from his "prison" and pronounces a curse on the rest of the characters. I mean, I get it--it's a curse. So it shouldn't be all "yuck yucks," but it was also such a weird and unwelcomed shift in the zeitgeist of the production--it was WAY too over-played. It distorted the flow of the production just as it was moving toward warm-hearted resolutions all around. I would not have directed the Malvolio character with such a need for gravitas and dignity. It was clear that the whole scene confused the audience as some were laughing with nothing funny in the least occurring on stage.

As a whole, I over-looked this moment in choosing to stand for my applause. But I was the ONLY person standing anywhere in my section of the theater (Dead center, main floor, 8 rows back from the stage) although not the only person who chose to stand. I have no doubt that this ill-played scene so close to the end affected the responses of my fellow audience members.

Having said that, I would recommend this production to anyone with an interest in quality theater and Shakespeare in the DC area--it's playing through December 20th.

As a final anecdote, I arrivedat the Judiciary Square Metro Station at about 7:05 PM and started my 5 minute walk to the Sidney Harmon Theater. It's just 3 blocks west of this station. At the first intersation, a tall, lanky young light-skinned African American man with a crazy mop of kinky hair joined me from the block directly North and then turned to head east with me along F Street, NW. I thought he looked familiar, and he certainly looked distinct. He was talking on his cell phone very loudly. He was talking about how he first came to the area to perform in some produciton at Strathmore in Bethesda. How he like being on stage, but his real love was making music. How he preferred his own compositions to those of others, but he didn't want to sound conceited and described his own music at "really out there." It sounded like someone in the midst of charming someone new in their life--and this conversation was clearly distracting him from the details around him. At the last intersection before the theater, we were both stopped by the traffic lights, although the traffic was lite, too. He stepped off of the curb and nearly a whole lane into the relatively barren intersection to wait for the walk signal. And by then I was convinced of his identity and nearly asked him to step back to the curb--after all, I've paid some really good money to see him perform tonight! I definitely didn't want to be a witness to his death on F and 6th instead! It was Heath Saunders who plays the character of Feste, the play's de facto narrator and troubador. The light changed and on the opposite curb I walked into the theater and he took a left south on 6th and then into the alley where the stage door was.