A gentle melancholy suffuses this rather gorgeous Twelfth Night at the Orange Tree Theatre
“Most wonderful!”
As newly minted memorial plaques adorn the walls and a funereal bell tolls, you can see the logic behind director Tom Littler resituating his Twelfth Night to the (presumably late) 1940s. It’s a setting that the production wears lightly for the most part, Feste being reincarnated as a Noël Coward-esque troubadour its biggest swing and altogether, it comes off as a minor-key masterpiece.
With its dark beginnings of dead brothers and shipwrecked twins, an air of melancholy usually sits over this play to start with but Littler keeps that thread running meaningfully throughout, even as the comic tomfoolery plays out hilariously through every inch of the stalls. As Stefan Bednarczyk’s Feste breaks down singing ‘Come Away Death’, it’s a devastatingly loaded moment, Tom Kanji’s Orsino giving him a hug as if he can alleviate the societal pain of a second world war in a generation.
What also impresses is Littler’s utter command of the space of his Orange Tree Theatre. With just a grand piano at the centre and a cabinet with a minimum of props off to the side, this Illyria may be stripped back – that said, the burnished, gilded floor and quality tailoring of Anett Black and Neil Irish’s set and costume design point us undoubtedly to the blitheness of the upper classes – but that allows for such focused performances and intense emotion to play out with few distractions.
Dorothea Myer-Bennett’s poised Olivia is beautifully warm, her grief melted by the youthful swagger of Patricia Allison’s intriguing Viola, herself surprised at how cocksure she can be as Cesario. And though it gets nowhere near the same stage time, there’s sizzling chemistry between Tyler-Jo Richardson’s Sebastian and Corey Montague-Sholay’s Antonio, making the casual cruelty with which Sebastian casts him off more acutely heartbreaking than usual, a point Littler makes sure we register in the final moving tableau.
And then there’s the sideplot of Malvolio, Maria et al in which a real early Christmas present is given with the casting of Oliver Ford Davies and Jane Asher, alongside Clive Francis’ Sir Toby and Robert Mountford’s Andrew Aguecheek. You might pause to wonder whether this Malvolio would truly believe this Olivia would fall for him but these scenes are so truly delicious that it is quickly forgotten. Ford Davies mixes real gravitas with the lightest of comic touches especially with the letter reading, the other three having a riot using non-existent gaps between audience members as the box tree.
The sense of entitlement of those upper classes – even from a lady-in-waiting – percolates strongly here too, clock the unrepentant smirk on Maria’s face at the end as she passes Malvolio, Asher giving poised hauteur so very well. It all adds up to a rather gorgeous production that I unexpectedly found incredibly moving – highly recommended.
