Peter Viney's Blog

Twelfth Night
By William Shakespeare
A Musical Adaptation

Conceived by Kwame Kewei-Arma and Shania Taub
Directed by Kwame Kewei-Arma and Oskar Eustis
Set Designed by Robert Jones
Costumes designed by Brigitte Reiffenstuel
Music score by Shaina Taub

CAST
Melissa Allen- Feste
Gabrielle Brooks – Viola
Gerar d Carey – Malvolio
Natalie Dew – Olivia
Martyn Ellis – Sir Toby Belch
Gbemisola Ikumelo – Maria
Jyuddah James – Sebastian
Jonathan Livingstone- Antonio
Paul Wilcocks- Fabian
Silas Wyatt-Barke – Andrew Aguecheek
Rupert Young – Orsino

MUSIC
Sean Green – conductor, keyboard, accordion
Noam Galperin – keyboard
Matt Isaac – guitar, ukulele
Daniel Francis Owen – bass
Rob Parsons – drums

plus community chorus of approx. Thirty

This is a 90 minute musical adaptation, set before the Notting Hill Carnival, and featuring a community chorus of thirty. It was first performed in Central Park, New York in 2016. The Young Vic’s new director, Kwame Kewei-Armah starts off his regime with it. Much of the story is carried by song lyrics, which are not utilizing any Shakespeare lines. The bits of bard that remain in between are very short. There is an argument for completely updating those lines, but then the bits they kept are all transparent enough.

The extended thrust stage and street set is brilliant, with a broken bit for emerging from water – it has a lifebuoy with Canal on it. The pub is called The Duke of Illyria.

In this one you have to sing. Not choral. Lead. They all get one. Gabrielle Brooks is a stunning Viola. We never get to know her name is Viola until the end of the play of course … she has no name at the start that we hear, and her time in a dress on arrival is seconds only, then she adopts the name Cesario while disguised as a boy. Here, when she reveals her name is Viola, the whole cast chorus “Viola?” in surprise, and indeed some distaste. Very good pointing of the Bard’s failure to get it in at the start. It’s such a good idea that I’m sure we’ll see it in future productions.

They make sense of Feste (not an easy task) and Melissa Allen is a powerful singer. Feste also becomes the priest. Sir Toby becomes the fake doctor treating Malvolio. Efficient.

Natalie Dew is Olivia. Orsino is in the window above.

Olivia is a marvellous  role, and Natalie Drew is a funny and sexy Olivia. Some wonderful reactions to what’s going on, especially in chasing barefoot after Cesario and then falling for Sebastian.

Orsino lives opposite and takes the scenes with Cesario (does he fancy him, or not?) very well. When Antonio is arrested by two London police officers, I think they failed to find a visual reason or explanation for Orsino’s authority. The sea battle where Antonio fought Orsino’s men is mentioned but doesn’t connect to where we are. Antonio is risking his life by entering the town in the story. I felt we needed some feel that Orsino had power over Antonio. The looming death penalty of the original is dropped – wisely, you’d never find a rationale in the setting, but I thought we needed some inkling of Orsino as someone with power. If I’d been able to think of a device, I’d mention it, but I can’t. A nice touch was them making up and shaking hands in the final dance. Orsino’s authority didn’t worry me at the time, because I was caught up in the general vibe, but it’s one that occurs in retrospect. A few changed lines over the sea battle might do the trick. Orsino might have witnessed a crime, for instance. Maybe a lyric explained it, but as in any musical, you notice the hooks in the songs, not the narrative. As with any strong concept on Shakespeare, it is inevitable that some things don’t fit well into the new setting. I stress, neither of us worried at the time.

Maria was just as I imagine, sparky and funny. She does a very funny ring display when Toby announces their marriage. Odd. It’s the third such jumping up and down with delight ring display I’ve seen this year … but that’s astute observation of a ritual / routine that has spread among women of her age everywhere. I wonder where it started.

Gabrielle Brooks as Cesario (i.e. Viola) and Rupert Young as Orsino

What can we say about Gerard Carey’s Malvolio? At least two reviews declare he is the best they’ve seen … and the other contenders don’t sing, and he’s a magnificent singer with the best song, which he gets to reprise at the end. I doubt that we can remember well enough to say “the best” but I will say I haven’t seen better. There are so many touches, but when awakened by Sir Toby and pals carousing, he has not only a sleep mask, but a Breathe Right nose plaster … they stop you snoring. They work too.

L to R Feste (in red), Maria, Sir Toby, Malvolio with Breathe Right plaster,  Sir Andrew (with cap)

The letter reading scene was delightfully done very truncated with fast mumbling.  His yellow cross garters are a Lycra cyclists’ outfit, which couldn’t be more appropriate for London. A similarly clad hyped up aggressive Lycra clad cyclist nearly ran us over while we were on a pedestrian crossing on the way back from the theatre. His prison cell (Malvolio’s, not the cyclist sadly) is the van which serves as a hearse for Olivia’s brother at the start- an efficient way of telling a lot of story with the BROTHER wreath (but you probably still have to know in advance). He gets a lot more action at the end than the normal, but he does radiate musical comedy star.

Gerard Carey as Malvolio

Sir Toby Belch is Welsh, leading to my oft-repeated comment that Shakespeare had a Welsh comic, but there’s no trace of the Welsh comic in the text … as there is in other roles. Sir Andrew is vaguely East or Central European. I’m not sure why. The accent wasn’t strong enough to be funny (which might have been offensive, I guess). A hard role as he lost so many of his best lines.

Silas Wyatt-Barke as Sir Andrew, Martyn Ellis as Sir Toby Belch

The Community Chorus idea was wonderful. It works. The six girls in glittery dresses doing the girl soul group songs look totally professional to me. A full five stars for general “vibe.”

Gerard Carey as Malvolio leads the song

I have a couple of criticisms. I think it absurd to complain, as our senior critics do, that it loses the subtlety of Shakespeare’s original lines. It is a musical adaptation, but it is fair to say they might have titled it TWELFTH NIGHT: THE MUSICAL. That’s what it is. However, given that it’s not one for school parties who’ve studied the play for A level, I thought the programme very poor in not saying who the characters are, and in failing to include a simple one page synopsis. I’ve seen Twelfth Night seven times on stage since I started this blog, and a couple of them twice. I must have seen it twenty times in my life on stage, let alone TV and film, but I think it is a little arrogant to say “Well, everyone knows the story.” While it’s one of the most popular Shakespeare plays, a production trying to embrace a wider community should not assume pre-knowledge. The lyrics do fill in the story, but with lyrics I suspect you still need to have an idea. I don’t even claim you need a synopsis. Even adding “a sea captain” after Antonio, and “Olivia’s servant” after Maria helps. Also, the Young Vic is justly proud of its 10% free tickets, and its £20 tickets. Might I suggest that few of these less wealthy audience members will wish to shell out £4 for a very thin but colourful programme? (Even if £4 is cheaper than the now average £5). They should follow the RSC and have free cast sheets with brief character descriptions. ‘Olivia, a rich lady whose beloved brother has just died. Orlando wishes to marry her, but she is in mourning” or whatever. We are seeing Eyam at the Globe the next day, and bought the programme on the way to the Young Vic. It has a writer interview and two excellent essays on background. No comparison.

The other is the Notting Hill Carnival sales pitch, one of the few things that gets in the programme. The set is five star, it looks like Notting Hill, the chorus is ethnically mixed, but … not a single bar of the music has a British Afro-Caribbean connection. No ska, no reggae, no two-tone, no steel drum bands, no West African tunes and rhythms. No rap. The music mixes American 70s soul, with very good conventional 50s / 60s mainstream musical numbers and Disney World stage ballads. It shows its origin in New York, and my first thought was Disney musical – that’s high praise from me, but there is not the slightest trace of Carnival or West-Indian or African music. The musical score is definitely retro.  It also has Cesario singing “pants” for “trousers” and finding an unfinished “son of a b……” funny, which only Americans would. You want an unfinished rhyme in Britain, try rhyming it with luck, or brag, not “rich” with  a dropped “bitch.” It’s transparently written for the USA in 2016. The Notting Hill Carnival connection is tenuous and only visual.

I’ll add a third. All of the singers are brilliant, and that’s what it’s about. They have thirty in the community chorus, but only five in the band. With songs and singers of this quality, Chichester Festival Theatre would have added a brass section and string players. The backing is inevitably thin.

OK, moans over. A standing ovation, never a given in Britain, even on a Friday night, and we loved every minute but the moans take a star off. Four star.

****

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

TWELFTH NIGHT:

• Twelfth Night RSC 2012
• Twelfth Night – Apollo 2012  Mark Rylance (Olivia), Stephen Fry (Malvolio)
• Twelfth Night- ETT 2014, Brighton Theatre Royal
• Twelfth Night, National Theatre, 2017
• Twelfth Night, Watermill, Newbury 2017
• Twelfth Night, The Globe, 2017
• Twelfth Night, RSC 2017  
• Twelfth Night, Young Vic, 2018
• Twelfth Night, Shakespeare’s Globe, 2021

RUPERT YOUNG
While The Sun Shines, by Terence Rattigan, Bath, 2016

MELISSA ALLEN
Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, NT, 2016

SILAS WYATT-BARKE
Much Ado About Nothing, Rose Theatre, Kingston 2018
Forty Years On by Alan Bennett, Chichester, 2017

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

5 star
Debbie Gilpin, Broadway World *****
4 star
Ann Treneman, The Times, ****
Ian Shuttleworth, The Financial Times ****
Patrick Marmon, Daily Mail ****
Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard ****
Natasha Tripney, The Stage ****
Sarah Crompton, What’s On Stage ****
Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out ****
Mark Shenton, London Theatre Co ****
3 star
Michael Billington, The Guardian ***
Domenic Cavendish, The Telegraph ***
Maxie Swalinska, Sunday Times ***