(8 votes, average: 3.88 out of 5)
(8 votes, average: 3.88 out of 5)
Closeted conspirators: Dave Daniels (Aguecheek), Brian Lee Huynh (Fabian) and John Tweel (Belch) (Photos Ray Gniewek)
This is good Shakespeare. This is damn good Shakespeare.
Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare’s most difficult comedies, full of implausible developments and astonishing cases of mistaken identity. Firebelly just plays the heck out of it, squeezing out every conceivable laugh with fully realized characters, slam-bang comic timing, and assured, well-conceived direction. In the end, as every comic playwright from Aristophenes to Christopher Durang has known, if the laughs are a-comin’ the plausibilities don’t matter.
O.K., see if this has ever happened to you. Duke Orsino (Ryan Nealy) has been conducting a long-term, highly unsuccessful campaign to win the heart of the beauteous Countess Olivia (Mikal Evans). The Countess, unfortunately, is in mourning for her dead brother, and has been for seven years, making courtship somewhat inconvenient. One day a young man, Cesario, shows up on Orsino’s doorstep looking for work. What Orsino doesn’t know is that Cesario is actually Viola (Amanda Thickpenny), a young shipwrecked woman who has for reasons unclear decided to disguise her gender and seek employment as the Duke’s manservant. Ignorant of the true facts, Orsino sends Cesario to court Olivia on his behalf. Olivia, of course, ignores the message and falls for the messenger.
Amanda Thickpenny (Viola) and Ryan Nealy (Orsino) (Photos Ray Gniewek)
Olivia lives in a household of crazy people. Her bibulous uncle, Sir Toby Belch (John Tweel) has recruited a spectacularly nitwitted knight, Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Dave Daniels), to court the Countess. Olivia’s chief steward, Malvolio (Joshua Drew), a puritan and a self-regarding prig, wields his authority with the maniacal assurance of a Congressional Committee Chair with a veto-proof majority. Malvolio’s underling Fabian (Brian Lee Huynh) longs to free himself from his boss’s oppression. Only Olivia’s shrewd lady-in-waiting Maria (Joanna Edie) and truth-telling jester, Feste (Jon Reynolds) lend balance and sense to the household.
Even as Olivia falls for Viola (in the guise
of Cesario), Viola falls for the Duke. This being set before the days of Dr.
Phil, honesty (beginning with “what’s my gender?”) is on the back burner, and
Viola slips double-meanings into her responses to Orsino’s questions with the
regularity of a Congressman slipping pork into an amendment. But then things
really get complicated as Viola’s twin brother, Sebastian (Vince
Eisenson) – also a shipwreck victim – shows up. As Sebastian is virtually
identical to Viola-in-drag, Olivia quickly jumps his bones, and thereafter
marries the astonished – and sated – Sebastian. Of course, there remains the
moment that Sebastian and Cesario/Viola confront each other; Viola confesses
her masquerade and her true feelings towards the Duke; and the Duke
reciprocates.
Mikal Evans (Olivia) and Vince Eisonson (Sebastian) (Photos Ray Gniewek)
Well, all right. Maybe it hasn’t happened to you. And – if we need to remove any doubt about it – no one would mistake the ultrafeminine Thickpenny for a boy. Nor would Thickpenny and the unambiguously masculine Eisenson ever be confused for each other, even by Mr. Magoo. But who cares? This is a wonderful production.
What makes it so wonderful? Start with Tweel’s marvelous Belch. Sir Toby was a literary precursor to Falstaff, a little cruder and not as tragic, and the cheerful, charming drunk Tweel puts on stage is properly outrageous without ever being unrealistic. Add to that Daniel’s moronic Aguecheek and Drew’s narcissistic Malvolio, both radiating obliviousness in spectacularly different ways. The athletic Huynh is terrific as the long-suffering servant Fabian. And although Reynolds is a little young for the part of Feste – who was, by the text, jester to Olivia’s father seven years previous – his skills more than make up for this slight deviation. In addition to radiating the startling boldness and searing wit that Shakespeare gives the character, Reynolds has a wonderful, rich singing voice which makes listening to the play’s music extremely pleasurable.
Jon Reynolds (Feste) (Photos Ray Gniewek)
These superb renderings of the comic characters make the more sober parts – Olivia, Orsino, Viola, Maria and Sebastian – richer and deeper, and the actors take full advantage of the emotional space created for them. In particular, the exchanges between Thickpenny as Viola and Evans as Olivia are always exciting and provocative, notwithstanding that the dialogue is basically the same: Olivia wants Cesario, and Cesario wants her to have Orsino.
I’ll go further than that: all fourteen actors, from Thickpenny’s Viola to the sailors and manservants, gives us something interesting, convincing, and in congruence with the rest of the production. When that happens, folks, all praise and honor has to go to the Director. Akiva B. Fox has informed this production with a profound understanding of Shakespeare and his devices, and his choices – sometimes bold and unconventional – invariably worked. He eschewed traditional Shakespearean costumes and put his characters in more contemporary garb, to good effect. Charmingly, he substituted a ukulele for Feste’s traditional lute. He placed his story on a stage bare except for a trunk, a cabinet, and some curtains. For master storyteller Shakespeare, as presented by master interpreter Fox, that was all that was needed.
And, not to be crass about it, the cost of admission for this production, which would do honor to any of the large stages of Washington, is only $15 – which is to say, the cost of a community theater show. For anyone who begins this six-month Washington Shakespeare Festival unfamiliar with The Bard in production and uncertain about whether he would like it, this is a perfect place to begin: with a highly accessible comedy, done beautifully, and for cheap.
(Running time: 2 hours). Twelfth Night continues at Arlington’s Theater on the Run, 3700 South Four Mile Run, Arlington, VA. until March 3. Tuesdays though Saturdays are at 8; Sundays are at 2 p.m. All tickets $15; Sunday matinees for those 65 and over are only $5. Tickets available online.