Twelfth Night: hilarity and heart in a comedy of mistaken (and disguised) identities
03 Aug 2024 - Photos by David Hou

Love is blind. And madcap. At least in this production of Twelfth Night where love lustily crosses gender and class barriers. Mistaken identities and disguises abound, but the driving force is that the heart wants what it wants. In 1602 it was probably played for laughs. In 2024 it is as well, but by setting the play in 1969, the summer of love when the sexual revolution and rock n' roll were hitting their stride, director Seana McKenna (Yaga, Lear) gets to add a froth of innocence to the proceedings. And, of course, some groovy fashions and furnishings, dance moves, bongos and folk music, and a musical finale that Mamma Mia-izes all the Shakespeare that went before. Shakespeare's comedies while whimsical and witty, also contain a lot of arcane wordplay, phrases and puns that alas require a certain amount of scholarly diligence to fully appreciate. McKenna and a game cast solve that problem with robust physicality and a very '60s sang froid. The visual gags not only provide comedy, they also illuminate the words that are flying thick and fast. This is not Shakespeare's Twelfth Night illustrated, it is Shakespeare's Twelfth Night enhanced.

We begin with a dramatic shipwreck. The storm passes leaving destruction and opportunity in its wake. Viola, Jessica B Hill (Romeo and Juliet, Mother's Daughter), survives the shipwreck but is convinced her twin brother has not. With the help of a gruff sea captain, David Collins (Richard II), she disguises herself as a man, Cesario, and gets a job in the household of the musically inclined hunky hedonist Duke Orsino, Andre Sills (Human Animals). Because, of course, in 1602 and 1969, good positions were not open to women. Orsino's hanger-ons, including Andrew Iles (Romeo and Juliet) and Thomas Duplessie (Jump, Darling), are not impressed by this interruption to their ass-kissing, particularly as an uncomfortable but undeniable sexual heat is developing between the two 'men.' But not to fear the queer spectre, Orsino is desperately wooing the luminous Olivia, Vanessa Sears (Romeo and Juliet, Queen Goneril, King Lear, Is God Is, Alice in Wonderland, Caroline, Or Change, Mary Poppins, The Wizard of Oz). However Olivia has vowed seven years of chastity and mourning for her dead brother, so Orsino sends love letters via Viola/Cesario. Oliva promptly falls in love with Cesario. 

There is also intrigue in the house of Olivia. Dipsomaniac gentleman Sir Toby Belch, Scott Wentworth (Romeo and Juliet, Wormwood), is pushing the long-haired hipster Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Rylan Wilkie, as a viable suitor for Oliva. To that end he has three nemeses, the spunky hand maiden Maria, Sarah Dodd (Mustard), the flower child fool Feste, Deborah Hay (Fall On Your Knees, Caroline, or Change, Lear), and the household manager, the glorious gorgon Malvolio, Laura Condlln (Frankenstein Revived, Fifteen Dogs, The Virgin Trial, Sisters, Fun Home, An Enemy of the People, Sextet). Hijinks ensue as team Belch attempts to dethrone Malvolio whose only vulnerability is her unrequited and unspoken love for Olivia. Meanwhile, Viola's twin brother Sebastian, Austin Eckert, did survive the shipwreck having been rescued from the jaws of death by a handsome sailor,  Emilio Vieira (Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, Grand Magic, Towards Youth), with a criminal past. The two become very close, very close, as they journey to their crucial roles in the converging plots.

Yes it is all convoluted and to a large extent silly, but it unfolds with the inevitable illogic of a classic farce. Wilke stumbles and bumbles but also busts some classic '60s dance moves and rocks a guitar solo. Wentworth channels a hapless but sinister David Niven. Dodd is the stereotyped suffering spinster who dives with Machiavellian glee into manipulation. And Sills' burgeoning pansexuality is subtle and hot. But it is Hays and Condlln who steal the show. The fool has many long speeches that would be lost in translation if not for Hays' delicious combination of wide-eyed wonder and bitter cynicism. And lovely singing voice. She even manages, with sheer glee, to make the dreaded audience pandering bongo interaction a delight. Condlln is a repressed buttoned down matron who rules with an iron fist and withering looks. Her transformation into a wanton neon-clad libertine is comedy of the highest degree. And when she is banished to a dungeon and harangued by Hays disguised as an orthodox priest, the hilarity skids off the rails into delirium. They are both extraordinary, subtly revealing the cracks in their armour while faithfully delivering Shakespeare's prose with heart, a wink and fearlessness.

Famous Shakespeare quotes get re-contextualized but the overriding "If it were a play on a stage, I would think it an improbably fiction" becomes a reality. Some of the roles have been gender reversed, on top of the gender play within the play, and while the fidelity to text may be broken, the effect is charming. Just post-the summer of love, an aura of the possibility of freedom to love who one chooses makes this Twelfth Night more prescient and buoyant than academic. Duke Orsino is the sun rising after the shipwreck with his exhortation "If music be the food of love, play on." The fool concludes this production with a musical number that draws in the entire cast who cut loose with the sheer joy of love, movement, rhythm and melody. It also sends the audience out into 2024 filled with joy and the possibility of the many variations that love can assume. Like theatre itself, there are many disguises and mistaken identities and plot twists waiting for us all. Viola pleads with Olivia that "I am not what I am," and the echo of La Cage aux Folles playing across town is deliberate. The heart wants what it wants. And on the Twelfth Night, love is blind.