Oct. 1 Performance of Twelfth Night in Stratford Ontario

I haven’t laughed as much as I did during the performance of Twelfth Night in a long time. It was a very enjoyable performance. Many of the cast from The Homecoming which was preformed earlier that day were in the Twelfth Night, which I have no doubt made for an exhausting day for the actors.

Brian Dennehy as Sir Toby, Stephen Ouimette as Sir Andrew, and Tom Rooney as Malvolio stole the show. Ben Carlson, who played Hamlet back in the 2008 Season when I went, was Feste, which totally changed my opinion of him as an actor. It added a lot more range of character for him in my mind. Sir Toby and Sir Andrew’s antics on stage were utterly ridiculous and kept me laughing throughout the night. This was a complete change for me from reading the play last semester in English 311. I saw the plots with Sir Andrew, Sir Toby, and Malvolio as this annoying side plot that dragged the play on longer than it needed to be. Seeing it on stage changed my whole opinion of the play. It just might be one of my favorite plays of all time.

This play had a lot more director’s interpretation to it and I think he attempted to bring out as much humor as he could. They switched the first two scenes around and their costumes had no time period. They ranged from 1980s dressed to 1920 sports and athletic wear. Yes, athletic wear. There were golf scenes (complete with golf cart) and scenes in a Sauna, complete with almost towel/wardrobe malfunction.

There was also this hilarious pizza scene, where Sir. Andrew orders a pizza and begins to eat it on stage! Also, Malvolio’s costume to win Olivia’s love was just priceless!

One of the things that I’m still trying to decide if I liked or not, was the amount of music in this performance. The actors had a lot of singing and there were musicians on stage at least every other scene, it was almost pushing rock opera for me. I think the director was trying to liven it up and really play out the comedy quality of this Shakespearean drama.

I like this play a lot more seeing it than reading it. The humor came out much stronger and I didn’t mind many of the director’s interpretations.  Changing up some of the wardrobe and time period in Shakespeare doesn’t bother me as much as it use to. I didn’t care much for the rock opera quality of the play, and they kept pushing the line:
“If music be the fruit of love: play on” too much. They said/sang it at least five times in the performance!

Twelfth Night is perhaps the best play I’ve seen since my 2008 trip. Each time I go it gets better and better! I do know I can’t wait to go back!