After a full day of sight-seeing (Warwick Castle, Anne Hathaway's cottage, Shakespeare's birthplace and grave) we saw Twelfth Night directed by Neil Bartlett at the Courtyard Theatre. Twelfth Night is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays and was on our required reading list for the introductory course at OOSC. Overall, I wasn't too thrilled with Bartlett's interpretation. I'm kind of a traditionalist which could have swayed my reaction to this play. Bartlett cast a man to play Viola as well as having women play the drunken pose of Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian. In a play already saturated with mistaken gender and subdued sexual tension, those reversals were over the top. The cast also used mirrors to portray a sense of introspection that I found distracting.
However, the play had one shining character that makes seeing this production well worth the time - Malvolio. John Lithgow (Just the fact that I saw John Lithgow on stage in England would have made me happy) gives a phenomenal performance as Olivia's steward who is endlessly tormented and tricked by other members of the household. The vision of him in cross-gartered yellow stockings will be etched in my mind for quite a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment