DCist: Romance For Christmas: Shakespeare Theatre's Twelfth Night

mho

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:40:56 -0500

Oh no wait, you're totally right, I've reversed the plays in my mind, even though the production with Dorn/Sabin/King as the malevolents is far fresher in my mind than the the more recent one with King as Malvolio, he's the only thing I remember from that production...

mho

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:33:19 -0500

I think the problem with STC's first week of production is that it's still a "preview week," though not prevalently advertised as such. @kilpatricka: King was Malvolio 20 years ago, and though I was 9, I still remember it vividly. In the Twelfth Night production 10 years ago, King was Sir Andrew. Oh and Fran Dorn as Maria and Sabin as Sir Toby. Oh those were the days...that were ruined by that charlatan Kelly McGillis! Ugh!

kilpatricka

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:42:03 -0500

@ gregmce: How could you not love Tamburlaine? Are you a woman? It was like an action movie with visceral poetry and no bs character development. Just a man taking over the world in the most hardcore manner possible. I saw it twice. And I saw that Twelfth Night production you're talking about. It was terrible. Shenandoah Shakespeare was pandering, overacted "fun!!!" aimed at elementary school students. Strictly middlebrow. The real production to beat would be Shakespeare Theater's show from oh about seven years ago (?). Floyd King as Malvolio. The audience was laughing like it was a production of Borat: The Musical.

gregmce

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 16:36:40 -0500

Wow. Well, I guess someone had to like it. I saw this last week and thought it was one of the worst plays I've seen at Shakespeare Theatre. Twelfth Night is a play that lives or dies based on its acting, and it was a fairly dreadful performance. Half of the cast mumbled their lines, and the performances were so unconvincing that I gave some serious thought on leaving at intermission — and I made it through Tamburlaine, for pete's sake. (Others in the audience, however, clearly decided to get the heck out of dodge. The audience numbers didn't drop like flies as they did in Tamburlaine, where over 20% of the people at closing night left, but there were some noticeable gaps in the audience as the lights started to go down for the second half last Thursday.) The staging and costumes were beautiful, I'll give the production that. But in terms of actual direction it was fairly disastrous; when I found myself yearning to travel back in time and instead view Shenandoah Shakespeare's production of Twelfth Night from 13 years ago, well... not good.

TripleE

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:24:20 -0500

We saw it last week, and it was amazing. The only other time I've seen Twelfth Night performed was by a troupe of 5, playing multiple roles. It was nice to see it done by a full cast with an array of sets and props. I definitely noticed the comedy being portrayed better than the tragedy, but overall it was very well done. Very amusing to recognize so many of the cast from Way of the World in varying roles as well. It was actually a little hard to believe Olivia at first, since I kept picturing her in a vastly different role, but she did overcome that quickly to me. Very worth it! Also, Malvolio and Jeste made the play for me. ~EEE~

jen209

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:20:38 -0500

I haven't seen the play yet (will next week), but I went to the windows discussion on Saturday. The director said she was actually trying to emphasize the sadness and grief in the play, not the comedy. Interesting how people interpret things differently!

cyrinaldi

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:06:26 -0500

saw this last week and the sets/casts were amazing! probably the best shakespearean play i've seen performed, but i haven't seen tons. i'm definitely going to more now. note: if you're under 35, you can get tickets for $10 opening weeks - they usually run $50/pop.

mongooseinthekitchen

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:57:16 -0500

Well played! You caught the things that I both enjoyed (Ms. Cox's performance, melancholy songs of Feste) and the things that caught me off guard (cheesy petals at the beginning, strange continuous grinning by Ms. Soule.) I wasn't fond of the set design, but overall, it was a wonderful evening at the theatre.