Synopsis Or What You Will. Shakespeare comedy of mistaken identity, practical jokes and unrequited love. Rescued from a shipwreck the twins Viola and Sebastian arrive independently in Illyria, both thinking the other is drowned. Viola disguises herself as a boy and finds employment with the Duke who is in love with Olivia. Malvolio is the subject of a cruel joke played on him by Sir Toby Belch (yellow stockings cross-gartered) leading him to believe that Olivia loves him. But Olivia has fallen in love with the disguised Viola, while she is in love with the Duke (following it so far?!). Running time: 3hrs including an interval of 20 minutes
One notable exception to the usual dearth of West End press nights over the festive period was the transfer of the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Twelfth Night, starring Richard Wilson as Malvolio, to the Duke of York's Theatre (23 December 2009, previews from 19 December).
Following hot on the heels of the Donmar's acclaimed Derek Jacobi-led production the previous year (See Review Round-up, 12 Dec 2008), this latest West End outing of Shakespeare's classic comedy of mistaken identity is directed by Gregory Doran, and continues to 27 February 2010.
The raft of three star ratings disguises some major differences in critical opinion. For instance, while some were impressed with Wilson’s “melancholy” portrayal of Malvolio, others, including the Guardian's Michael Billington, felt his “poker-backed” performance was overly influenced by his desire to “shed the Victor Meldrew stereotype” (the Daily Telegraph's Dominic Cavendish suggested on the other hand that the interpretation, at least vocally, was “99 per cent Meldrew”).
Elsewhere, Alexandra Gilbreath was widely praised for her “outstanding” depiction of the wealthy countess Olivia and special mentions also went to Miltos Yeremelou for the “ebullient presence” of Feste, the “delightful tartan-trousered” James Fleet as Aguecheek and Nancy Carroll for her “excellent” Viola.
Maxwell Cooter on Whatsonstage.com (three stars) - “There’s a strangely non-comic Malvolio from Richard Wilson too. He conveys the dour melancholy of the character very well and certainly seems to relish his puritanism - so much so, that one wonders exactly why he wants Olivia in his bed … Miltos Yeremelou’s Feste is an ebullient presence - at one point leading the on-stage band in a frenzied drumming session - who, in contrast to some other performances, doesn’t reveal anything of the darker side of the character. He has some great interaction with the audience and provides most of the laughs but doesn’t have the insight of the great Festes … And best of all, Alexandra Gilbreath is a superb Olivia - right from the start, one senses that she’s playing the role of the mourning out of duty rather than desire, explaining why she’s so happy to explore the sexual possibilities presented by Cesario, or Sebastian. This is a strange mix of a production - there are some good performances, and some excellent ones in a handsomely mounted set, courtesy of Robert Jones’ design. And yet, it doesn’t quite hang together. The parts don’t quite make the whole.”
Fiona Mountford in the Evening Standard (three stars) - “Richard Wilson should be dream casting as Malvolio, the snitty steward who is tricked into thinking that his mistress Olivia has the hots for him, but isn’t. He fails to pounce upon this peach of a role in the way Derek Jacobi did last year, but instead appears cowed by it. Despite a delightful turn from the tartan-trousered James Fleet as Aguecheek, the “lighter people” make rather heavy weather of it. Robert Jones’ lovely design whisks the action back to the crumbling-pillared Levant of Byron’s time, although we’d need more elegant ruins than this to distract us from the fatal lack of poignancy that Olivia (Alexandra Gilbreath, too breathy) and Viola (Nancy Carroll, too bluff) manage to generate around their confused situations.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian (three stars) - “… Gregory Doran's imported Stratford revival, with its eastern Mediterranean setting and casting of Richard Wilson as Malvolio, is picturesque, pleasant and popular. I still feel, however, that Doran finds more comedy in the play's romantic complexities than he does in its social divisions … This is partly because of Alexandra Gilbreath's outstanding Olivia: the best since Geraldine McEwan. Gilbreath plays this wealthy countess as a volatile, skittish, humorous woman aching to escape from her ritualistic mourning for her brother. She also has the true Shakespearean capacity to turn, emotionally, on a sixpence: her testy rage at her drunken uncle, Sir Toby, is transformed in a split second to a breathy ardour for the handsome Sebastian, mistaken for his disguised twin … But the production's Levantine setting, with its bustling bazaars and bushy-bearded priests, deprives the comedy of some of its deeply English social precision. Much as I enjoyed Wilson's poker-backed Malvolio, he is so anxious to shed the Victor Meldrew stereotype that he makes the aged steward seem almost endearing in his hopeless passion for Olivia: it's a good performance but I'd have liked more puritanical repressiveness.”
Dominic Cavendish in the Daily Telegraph (three stars) - “Who’s hugely excited by the fact that Gregory Doran’s production features Alexandra Gilbreath as Olivia, or Richard McCabe as Sir Toby Belch, or James Fleet as Sir Andrew Aguecheek? These are fine actors – and they deliver fine work here, McCabe and Fleet achieving the evening’s most acrid comedy in their double-portrait of flatulent male inadequacy, impotence and sozzled regret … Does Wilson have what it takes to convince as a comically humourless steward who jeopardises his position by taking that position too seriously? Absolutely. His face is all winter – when he flashes a creepy grimace of a smile, the brightness is so false you almost have to avert your gaze. He catches the hurt and humiliation of the man, too. So what if, vocally, his tone of strained irritation is 99 per cent Meldrew?”
Benedict Nightingale in The Times (three stars) - “… when Alexandra Gilbreath’s Olivia cries 'Oh, wonderful' after seeing the twins she’s successively wooed and wed, why must she sound as if she’s looking forward to an orgiastic threesome? … That’s a special pity. Until a farcical, over-the-top ending, her Olivia has caught the balance of a play that’s at once romantic, comical and oddly troubling. She’s been formidable, even imperious, but she’s clearly repressed both a natural playfulness and a breathy yet breathless emotional need. There are other almost-excellent performances too: from Carroll’s fresh, feeling Viola, from Jo Stone-Fewings’ rapturously self-dramatising Orsino, and from Richard McCabe as a sottish, slouching Belch who defies his name by persistently letting wind from an aperture way below his mouth - and from Richard Wilson. His Malvolio is an ultra-cold fish who contemptuously ogles the world from his piscine eyes yet has one big secret, which is that he hopes for social and sexual advancement from Olivia.”
Sarah Hemming in the Financial Times(three stars) - “Even the comic characters have a dark edge. Richard McCabe’s Toby Belch can be a funny old soak, but can also be both savage and pathetic. Miltos Yerolemou’s Feste has a rueful self-awareness, delivering his quips with contempt. And Richard Wilson’s Malvolio, while he wrings humour out of his dyspeptic delivery, cuts a deeply dejected spectacle as he realises how his hopes of love have been exploited. But while the shadows emerge, the comedy fares less well. The riotous drinking interlude is a bit laboured and the famous gulling of Malvolio is mildly amusing rather than hilarious. This matters: it makes the first half rather sticky and slow and prevents the audience entering into the delirium of the play … There are, however, some fine performances, and the relationship between Olivia and the disguised Viola is beautifully done. Alexandra Gilbreath makes an amusingly vain Olivia, who falls delightfully for Nancy Carroll’s Viola. And Carroll is excellent: boyish, impetuous and touching in her romantic confusion.”
Twelfth Night should be ideal Christmas fare, the tale of mistaken identity, thwarted love and mocking of Puritanism should make for fine seasonal entertainment. Last year, the Donmar gave us a fine production, led by Derek Jacobi’s outstanding Malvolio, so the RSC had a lot to live up to.
Gregory Doran sets the action in a Levantine fantasy world more akin to Arabian Nights than to Shakespeare’s beguiling play, offers plenty to savour but seems to have by-passed the comedy, This is a production that revels in the cruelty of the play, typified by Richard McCabe’s Toby Belch. This is a personification far removed from the usual, jovial braggart. There’s a sense of self-disgust allied with a desire to hurt, not for amusement's sake but for sheer malice.
There’s a strangely non-comic Malvolio from Richard Wilson too. He conveys the dour melancholy of the character very well and certainly seems to relish his puritanism - so much so, that one wonders exactly why he wants Olivia in his bed. His smile is a hideous rictus, forced into place. It’s reprised in the last scene, when he contemplates his revenge as he too looks to derive pleasure from cruelty.
Such grimness is at odds with the colourful setting - although it must also be noted that there’s a hearty amount of drinking going on for a Muslim country - but there are several other performances that seem to come from an entirely different play.
Miltos Yeremelou’s Feste is an ebullient presence - at one point leading the on-stage band in a frenzied drumming session - who, in contrast to some other performances, doesn’t reveal anything of the darker side of the character. He has some great interaction with the audience and provides most of the laughs but doesn’t have the insight of the great Festes. Nancy Carroll’s Viola is a more conventional performance, nicely capturing the (seemingly) unrequited love for Orsino and perplexed by Olivia’s partiality towards her.
Three performances stand out. James Fleet captures Andrew Aguecheek’s mixture of bombast, vulnerability and helplessness very well - one senses who desperately wants to be loved. Jo Stone-Fewings is an emotional, almost petulant Orsino - as capricious and egotistic as a pop star - just the sort of man who could love so irrationally.
And best of all, Alexandra Gilbreath is a superb Olivia - right from the start, one senses that she’s playing the role of the mourning out of duty rather than desire, explaining why she’s so happy to explore the sexual possibilities presented by Cesario, or Sebastian.
This is a strange mix of a production - there are some good performances, and some excellent ones in a handsomely mounted set, courtesy of Robert Jones’ design. And yet, it doesn’t quite hang together. The parts don’t quite make the whole.
- Maxwell Cooter
NOTE: The following FIVE STAR review dates from October 2009, and this production's premiere at the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Gregory Doran’s production of Twelfth Night is a thoroughly engaging, impeccably interpreted piece of theatre. The action takes place in a mercurial corner of the Ottoman Empire, before a set of breathtaking beauty and simplicity and upon a stage which lends itself equally to the public storytelling squares reminiscent of the Djemma el Fna and the courtly gardens of Duke Orsino and Countess Olivia.
The comic timing is superb. Miltos Yerolemou is an outstanding Feste, capable of managing the mercurial mood shifts and malicious intelligences of the Fool, shifting allegiances between compassion and exploitation with absolute conviction. His song "What is Love" is tender and tawdry, full of contradiction, a beguiling mix of cynicism and hope.
Pamela Nomvete, in her debut season for the Royal Shakespeare Company, is equally good as Olivia’s maid, making the transition between lady’s maid to Sir Toby’s aide with great credibility. Doran highlights the interior logic of this transition by emphasising the resentment she feels towards Malvolio when he accuses her, along with Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, of carousing in the small hours.
Richard McCabe brings out the dark possibilities of drunken Sir Toby Belch, loyal to no-one, not even his friends, thus making complete sense of the cruelty later to be visited upon Malvolio. And James Fleet is an extravagantly gawky Sir Andrew Aguecheek. The eavesdropping scene is a masterpiece, beautifully conceived and executed, with the three miscreants secreting themselves to hilarious comic effect in a box tree - ingeniously reinvented for this production.
As Olivia, Alexandra Gilbreath is magnificent, moving from grief-stricken hauteur, delivered in a beautifully modulated, richly tonal voice, through to an engagingly candid young woman, newly besotted with Cesario, suddenly alive to the possibilities of sexual adventure. The joy upon her face when against all her expectations Sebastian agrees to marry her is a moment of pure theatrical pleasure for the audience. Nancy Carroll’s performance of Viola has great candour and directness, which makes her reunion with her twin, often a shaky moment in the play’s credibility, authentically moving.
Richard Wilson’s brilliant Malvolio emphasises all the censorious loftiness of a man steeped in a puritanical understanding of his place in the world, while nevertheless longing to be considered the equal of his social (but not his moral) superiors. His vanity is palpably ridiculous, his sporting of the cross-gartered yellow stockings, and his painful attempts at a smile, truly hilarious, but his demise is undeserved and his humility in confronting the extent of his deception is genuinely chastening.
The costumes are beautiful: from Olivia’s noble Spanish mourning at the beginning of the play, taking in Sir Andrew Aguecheek’s vulgar arrangement of checks and paisleys, through to the exotic brilliance of the Turkish courtiers, the costumes and Robert Jones' set convey a great deal of information simply, which allows the action of the play and the dialogue to be rendered with grace and clarity.
There is great economy and elegance to Doran’s direction, which together with the unwaveringly sure performances make for an absolutely outstanding evening.
Oh dear what a dissapointment. This is supposed to be a funny play yet I laughed not once. Why Richard Wilson has been courted for so long to play Malvolio I simply don't know. He brought nothing to the character. Nancy Carroll and Alexadra Gilbreath did their best but this was a generally porr production, which following on from the Donmar dissapoinment of last year has left me wondering if its the play that's the problem. Yet I saw a fine production many years ago at the RSC with Des Barritt as Malvolio so it can work. Afraid not this time though. - Paul Wallis
20 Feb 10
Compare and contrast - the Donmar / RSC: Hamlet / Twelfth Night. Michael Grandage's production of one of Shakespeare's best comedies was certainly much funnier - here Toby Belch and Andrew Aguecheek are seriously disappointing. Richard Wilson's Malvolio is almost relegated to a minor character - his final cry of revenge even comes from offstage - but there is a vintage Meldrew moment as he pops his head through a trapdoor to remonstrate with noisy revellers. Greg Doran's focus is on Olivia and Viola and fortunately Alexandra Gilbreath and Nancy Carroll are both exceptionally good. There is also a nice Orsino from Jo Stone-Fewings (Mr. Carroll). The well behaved school party around us loved the play, particularly Feste, which is part of the RSC's remit, but they decerve no credit for limiting their London season to just this one production plus a couple of new works at Mampstead - the taxpayer deserves more for their subsidy. - David Baxter
27 Jan 10
The Eastern promises that are hinted at are never quite shown to us in a production that mixes reality with pantomimic performances that somehow break uneasily out of what could have been a new and intriguing interpretation.
Alexandra Gilbreath's Olivia, and Nancy Carroll’s performance of Viola are breathtaking in their clarity and depth, showing us the true heart of these estranged women forced to wear masks in order to maintain their position whilst suppressing their secret longings.
Richard McCabe and James Fleet give a truth to Belch and Aguecheek that is rarely seen when these characters are played for laughs and adds a level of poignancy that is both touching and disturbing.
Whilst Derek Jacobi's Malvolio was a revelation, Richard Wilsons' is as expected - his delivery and tonality are so well known that predictability is a foregone conclusion and his mannered delivery adds nothing new to our understanding of Malvolio the man.
The inspired simplicity of the staging is matched by some superb lighting techniques that drench the stage in warmth and woe as appropriate.
- Dave J
21 Jan 10
The audience seemed to thoroughly enjoy this production and I among them. The acting was good all round and the production inventive, musical and absorbing. - Marian Hone
07 Jan 10
A bit of a disappointment - the design has so many unresolved ideas, it looks like an end-of-term production with a bit of every other show in it. The comedy is laboured and over-indulged, with little feedback from the audience. however, worth seeing for Nancy Carroll, the best Viola I have seen, and a wonderful Alexandra Gilbreath. - dgr1
Opened 10 Sep 1892 as the Trafalgar Square Theatre,name changed in 1895. Major refurbishment 79/80. Taken over by the Royal Court during their two year refurbishment starting in 1996, called the Royal Court downstairs. 650 seats. Society of London Theatre member. An [ATG] member.
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