Review: A new production of Shakespeare’s comedy at Sydney Opera House finds laughter and darkness in our enduring fixation on physical appearance.
Twelfth Night or What You Will,This is the play, after all, where the protagonist is a female who disguises herself as a pageboy, and at its debut in 1601 would have been portrayed by a male adolescent.Brett Boardman
She had Viola played in the first scene by a woman, Isabel Burton, then switched to a male actor, Alfie Gledhill, once Viola has disguised herself as a ‘male’ servant, Cesario, in the Illyrian court of Duke Orsino.Burton then started playing Sebastian, Viola’s twin brother, who becomes separated from her in a shipwreck off Illyria, necessitating Viola’s cross-dressing ruse as she navigates a strange land.
All of these switcheroos had big dramatalurgical pay-offs. The core message which Shakespeare was trying to send - that true love respects no man-made definition or category - resounded thrillingly tonight.The chicanery also made the play hard to follow for those less familiar with it, if the chatter overheard at interval and afterwards was anything to go by.
There were plenty of laughs along the way, with Keith Agius as Olivia’s drunkard uncle Toby Belch, and Mike Howlett camping it up as Belch’s mate Sir Andrew Aguecheek, proving especially great physical comedians.
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