Chicago Sunday
Times January 1996, Hedy Weiss
Directors of
Shakespeare often impose a particular style on their productions and the
result, more often than not, seems like little more than a whim of personal
taste or fashion. But in his ingenious and ultimately revelatory staging of
Twelfth Night, British actor Michael Pennington has found a setting that not
only fits the play like a glove, but one that illuminates the motivation behind
much of its thorny and often cruel comedy.
Working as a guest director with Chicago’s
Shakespeare Repertory Company, Pennington has subtly and consistently transferred
the play’s mythical kingdom of Illyria to a city with a strong resemblance to
post-Civil War Charleston, South Carolina. And the choice turns out to be far
more than decorative, or one with appeal for an American audience and actors.
Twelfth Night is a tale of a brother and sister who
have been torn apart, and of an aristocratic household whose love cannot thrive
and where petty meanness is the name of the game, revenge and confusion are
everywhere in this once prosperous now defeated Southern city.
Pennington does not knock you over the head with
any of this. His set designer, Donald Eastman, has created a wall of shutters,
another of sliding French doors and a third with classical columns along a portico
that looks out onto a Low Country beach landscape. From there everything falls
into place, with Nan Zabriskie’s winning costumes – some lavish, some tattered
– carrying the theme further.
Olivia, the mistress of the house (the elegant,
wonderfully controlled Lisa Dodson), is mourning for her dead brother – a
casualty of the war it now appears. And in one scene she even wears a silk
kimono, suggesting a taste for Far Eastern luxuries. Beyond this, the setting
deftly explains characters behavior. For example, the blustery Sir Toby Belch
(a delicious portrayal by Howard Witt), is now played as an over-the-hill
soldier who has gone down in dishonor and is acting out in an obnoxious,
childish way. Antonio (the impeccable Ned Schmidtke), the sailor who rescues a
young man at sea, is clearly a former blockade-runner for the Union side and so
is in disfavor in “Illyria.” Even Olivia’s steward, Malvolio (Greg Vinkler, in
a masterful turn that makes even the famous letter scene new), takes on added
colors as he pathetically aspires to the faded aristocracy.
Viola and Sebastian, the fraternal twins (played
with true grace by Elyse Mirto and Christopher Gerson), appear to be well born
Yankees who were lost at sea. And Olivia’s servants (including the excellent Sarajane
Avidon) are all Irish immigrants.
Pennington, who also knows that many scholars
believe Southern English has the sound closest to Shakespeare’s own Elizabethan
tones, uses this information cleverly. He hasn’t asked his actors to adopt fake
Southern accents; they use standard speech. But the foppish dimwit, Sir Andrew
Aguecheek (zesty Frank Farrell), does have a notable drawl. And all the music
of Alaris Jan’s appealing score – including the songs of the fool, Feste (a
superb performance by Ronald Keaton) – have the twang of a string band.
Add to this Shakespeare’s incomparable gift for
conjuring the human potential for nastiness, as well as reconciliation, and you
have a production of tremendous appeal and unexpected insights.