Twelfth Night at the Orange Tree Theatre – review

It’s a rare Twelfth Night that makes the character of Feste its centre point. Not Viola, one of a pair of shipwrecked twins, speaker of some of the most beautiful lines in Shakespeare. Not Orsino, the duke with whom she (while disguised as a boy) falls in love. Or Olivia, the rich woman, whom Orsino adores, but in turn falls for Viola in her masculine guise. Or even Malvolio, the puritanical steward who is tricked into behaving like a fool.

But Feste. The clown. The singer of songs. A character so insignificant I’ve seen productions that omit him. Instead, director Tom Littler’s chamber version of the play literally revolves around Feste, putting the marvellously poised Stefan Bednarczyk at a grand piano set on a golden clock face floor, designed by Anett Black and Neil Irish. Time passes, the piano turns and the play unfolds.

It’s set in the 1940s, and the brother Olivia mourns has been killed in the war. The songs played by Bednarczyk, who doubles as music director, are tinged with the flavour of the times – but also include Bach’s “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” and a carol renamed “The Twelve Days of December”.

The dominance of the piano in the tiny space means the action is unusually static and constrained. When the plotters make Oliver Ford Davies’s Malvolio believe that Olivia loves him, they sit among the audience instead of hiding behind a box hedge. Characters lean across Bednarczyk as they speak.

But it also allows the mood to switch on a sixpence from deep melancholy to high comedy, creating (along with William Reynolds’ sombre lighting and the names on the war memorial that forms the upper reaches of the set) a play that feels suitable for the depth of winter rather than the summertime it references.

That sense of being in the fall of the year is emphasised by casting that makes Malvolio, and his tormentors Toby Belch (Clive Francis) and the maid Maria (Jane Asher), unusually mature. At 85, Ford Davies’s physical frailty emphasises both his need to cling to his status and the cruelty of his treatment. The depth and subtlety of the performance, however, is what makes it both funny and moving; the years have not dimmed Ford Davies’s timing, or his insight.

In the same way, Francis makes Toby a much more interesting reprobate than usual; he is truly reprehensible, shameless in the way he grasps every opportunity to indulge himself at the expense of others. His treatment of the hapless Andrew Aguecheek is made all the more shocking by the fact that Robert Mountford is unusually amiable, anxious to please. His “I was loved once” is both believable and sad.

It’s these secondary characters who dominate the action. Patricia Allison (best known for appearing in Sex Education) is an attractively direct Viola, but the love for Tom Kanji’s changeable Orsino doesn’t quite cut through. Tyler-Jo Richardson’s Sebastian makes a real impact on his professional debut as her entirely believable twin and Corey Montague-Sholay adds dignity and gravitas to the tiny role of Antonio, the sea captain who loves him. Meanwhile, Dorothea Myer Bennett’s breathlessly excitable Olivia makes her journey from mourning to joy with an enticing energy and a strong sense of self-irony.

It’s a lovely performance in a production that puts a familiar play in an interesting focus. With another production about to open at the Royal Shakespeare Company, it’s suddenly a seasonal classic.