Abstract
With the steady proliferation of ‘director's theatre’ productions, audiences have become familiar with seeing Shakespeare plays relocated to radically different historical periods, for instance to the American ‘wild west’, aesthetic choices that can either complement or sit uncomfortably with the original script. Sioned Jones's production for the Shakespeare in the Squares 2023 season sets Twelfth Night on the cusp of the roaring twenties, allowing her cast's diverse musical and vocal talents to take centre stage rather than any concerted emphasis on the play's treatment of gender or sexual roles, imparting a felicitous Broadway flavour to the occasional play's merriment.
In contrast to moody, autumnal productions of the play popularised by Trevor Nunn's 1990s film, Jones's cast exhilarates in their carnivalesque humour and frequent opportunity to burst into song (music direction by Annemarie Lewis Thomas): the louche Toby (Toby Gordon), hair free-flowing and sporting a quilted lounge robe and ascot, raspberries the resplendent Malvolio (Richard Emerson), dressed in a formal white tie morning suit and gold waist chain (costume design by Emily Stuart). With his straw boater hat, red-and-yellow striped jacket, yellow bow tie, and strumming a banjo, Andrew (Fred Thomas) lacks only a punt, part Oxbridge undergraduate, part carnival barker. This jovial crew incites the audience to join their boisterous sing-along (in 2.3), ‘Hold thy peace’, and then ‘When the Saints Go Marching in’, with Maria (Priscille Grace) banging along on a pot and a spoon after some initial misgivings.
The cast's charismatic Feste (conflated with Fabian's role, played by Marissa Landry) is the production's engaging focus, however, a jitterbugging pixie in a fringed, gold lamé flapper dress collared with swan's down and a Louise Brooks bob. Later in 4.2, as Sir Topas – an Orthodox priest in a brocade surplice, oversize black wooden crucifix, long veil, and a theatrical black beard – Landy channels her comic talent and her rubbery, expressive face to liven up what is often a regrettably tedious scene, kicking up her heels and singing ‘Who's Sorry Now?’ to close the scene (a dancing cleric out of a Monty Python skit). Malvolio's prison is a garden trellis completely obscuring him with foliage; only his yellow-gloved hands were visible gesturing along to underscore each of his articulations. Pulled into officiating Olivia and Cesario's/Sebastian's troth-plighting to the tune of a clarinet's ‘Here Comes the Bride’, it is also Topas himself (rather than 4.3's ‘holy father’) who later confirms the validity of their vows in 5.1, making the audience realise that the solemnisation of the pair's union is really just part of Feste's merrily totalising farce.
Stagings of Twelfth Night must reckon both with a long history of prior theatrical innovation and the imaginative limits of physical comedy in 2.5, the ‘box tree’ scene: what clever new device can a director bring to this centrepiece of the play? Jones opts to foreground her actors’ comedic abilities, with the actors barely attempting to conceal themselves behind scrolled-metal garden furniture. Toby gets himself a cocktail and settles in comfortably for the ‘MOAI’ sequence as Malvolio checks in with the audience whether there is any ‘ob/struction in this’ (112–13). His lofty rolling R's and Received Pronunciation (RP) serve as aural reminders of Malvolio's gravity, paired with his visibly Herculean efforts to smile. Instructing us to ‘go get a beer’, Toby announces the interval.
As with the box tree scene, audiences have much to anticipate in Malvolio's costuming when he returns to the stage following Maria's prescriptions. Embellishing heavily on the yellow theme, Emerson wears banana-yellow silk boxer shorts, gloves, and cravat; a gold silk-brocade gown with purple edging; and, for the crowning touch, vivid yellow-plaid crossed garters, much to Olivia's astonished ‘Malvoli-oh!’ (an expression borrowed from Mark Rylance in the role). Costumed after a pre-Raphaelite Jane Morris with a rose in her long wavy black hair and an orange-and-gold brocade gown with a big pink shearling collar, this cheerful Olivia (Carys McQueen) is not fazed by Andrew's address to her, ‘the pregnant Olivia’, as he consults his notes.
The production increasingly punctuates the Vaudevillian-styled slapstick humour with the sounds of honking horns and ringing bells; Olivia hales Toby around by his ear for his insouciance, happily responding to Sebastian's acquiescence to ‘be ruled by’ her (4.1.61). Clad in the same aviator's gear, a pair of goggles and a flowing scarf, as Viola's gender-neutralising guise picked out of a washed-ashore steamer trunk, Sebastian (Thomas again) practices looking dashing for Olivia. Already having introduced himself singing to the tune of ‘I Ain’t Got Nobody’ in an East London accent, Antonio (Lee Drage) embraces Sebastian for too many extra beats. The trio of Toby, Andrew, and Feste/Fabian ready Andrew for his fisticuffs duel with Cesario/Viola (Lucy Ireland) by encouraging him with muscle poses and massaging Andrew's neck as he parries like a pugilist – for a few bouts, Viola and Andrew paddle the air weakly before Antonio steps in, only to be promptly arrested by a Cockney bobby (Emerson again) bearing his visage on a ‘wanted’ poster.
At the play's close, Orsino (Gordon again, locks pulled back in a quasi-aristocratic ponytail to contrast with Sir Toby's relaxed mode), a slightly outdated Edwardian country squire, hale and bluff in tweedy jacket, plus fours, waistcoat, and accessorised with a riding crop, kneels earnestly to ask his ‘mistress's’ hand. He approves the report of his absent alter ego's (Toby's) marriage to Maria, who at first reluctantly confesses her role in Malvolio's gulling under Olivia's sidelong gaze. After her distress at Viola's confused rebuffs (at one instance, she is reduced to feline caterwauling in frustration), Olivia cannot believe her luck that Orsino's ‘boy’ Cesario has been transformed to the right kind of ‘maid’. Aptly, she leads the full cast in the final Gershwin number, ‘'S Wonderful, ’S Marvelous’, featuring a tap-dancing solo interlude by Feste. The other actors play various instruments, swelling into a crescendo, the theme from The Muppets – it's only just time to play the music and get things started tonight.