Elsewhere
Elsewhere
✭✭✭✩✩
by William Shakespeare, directed by Tim Carroll
Shakespeare’s Globe, Belasco Theatre
November 10, 2013-February 16, 2014
Sir Andrew: “He does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural”. (Act 2)
The production of Twelfth Night by Shakespeare’s Globe on Broadway has received extraordinarily rapturous reviews in New York. They are so ecstatic you would almost think New York critics had never seen the play before. Indeed, according to the Internet Broadway Database, Twelfth Night never has played on Broadway before and the last time it was seen off-Broadway was in 2009.
The production, in repertory with Richard III, has led Ben Brantley of The New York Times to exclaim, “This is how Shakespeare was meant to be done” even though director Tim Carroll’s method using so-called “original practices” is obviously only one way of many to stage Shakespeare and a fairly dubious one at that. As someone who has seen Carroll’s work at Ontario’s Stratford Festival just this year, the question that arises is how Carroll’s production of Romeo and Juliet could be one of the worst in Stratford’s history and how this his production of Twelfth Night should be be so successful, at least among those who have seldom seen the play.
What seems to be clear is that Carroll’s idea of “original practices” – i.e., presenting Shakespeare’s plays as they supposedly would have been done in Shakespeare’s day – is a severely flawed approach. Since there was no director in Shakespeare’s day, what role does Carroll think he has? Carroll therefore encourages the actors to work out their scenes together among themselves. This is all very well if you are working with brilliant actors with lots of experience in Shakespeare, but it does not work so well when you have mostly young actors with little experience on stage in general, let alone in Shakespeare.
This situation helps explain why in Stratford’s Romeo and Juliet only one actor, Sara Topham, struggled on as if trying to save the entire show herself, while all the remaining actors foundered. Something unfortunate did happen in Romeo that does not happen in this Twelfth Night, where an experienced actor, in this case Tom McCamus, was so clearly fed up with the production that he delivered his lines perfunctorily and without the slightest engagement. Luckily for Carroll, everyone in the troupe of Twelfth Night tries to do his best even if he doesn’t succeed.
It is generally believed that Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night not for the Globe Theatre but for a private celebration of the eponymous feast day. Indeed, the first recorded performance of the play was on Candlemas, February 2, 1602, at Middle Temple Hall at the Inns of Court. Carroll’s designer Jenny Tiramani has according set the play inside a mock-up of a Tudor hall with quarter-sawn oak panelling, only two doors in the back wall for entrances and a balcony above the doors where seven musicians are located. Stan Pressner’s lighting consists of seven huge chandeliers, bearing a total of more than 100 candles, that are ceremoniously lit and hoisted above the playing area. To carry the sense of candle-light into the auditorium the house lights are dimmed slightly but not totally extinguished.
At Stratford, Carroll had the rather hopeless task of trying to stage Romeo in an indoor theatre as if it where in an outdoor theatre. Here, at least, he is staging a play written for an indoor theatre in an indoor theatre, although Middle Temple Hall would hardly have held 1040 spectators on three levels. Carroll tries to allude to the intimacy of a Tudor hall setting by locating two ranks of of spectators on what look like jury boxes facing each other on either side of the stage.
Everyone knows that in England women were not permitted to act on the public stage until the Restoration. Therefore, Carroll has all the female roles in Twelfth Night played by men – Mark Rylance as Olivia, Samuel Barnett as Viola and Paul Chahidi as Maria. (Carroll did not bother to observe this aspect of “original practices” at Stratford.) If “original practices” were not really just a system a director can invoke or dismiss at will, Carroll should really have boys, not men, play the female roles since that is how it was done in Shakespeare’s day. Boys used their natural unbroken voices. Men have to attempt a falsetto, which is difficult to project, or otherwise soften their voices.
As at Stratford, Carroll throws his actors to their own devices, it’s just that here most, though not all, of his actors have a wealth of devices to hand. The diction of Terry McGinty as Sebastian’s Sea Captain is absolutely clear. That of John Paul Connolly as Antonio, Viola’s sea captain, is not. As Orsino, Liam Brennan is alone in using a north-country accent even though his accent should be the same as Olivia’s and the other “Illyrians”. He also makes little sense of what he says. As Sir Toby Belch, Colin Hurley has very little presence which means that the so-called “kitchen scenes”, in an unusual turn, are consistently dominated by Maria – but then Chahidi has stage presence enough for two. Angus Wright is very good in making Sir Andrew Aguecheek a complete dullard, yet even though he underplays the role to give focus to Hurley, his Aguecheek also inevitably dominates Hurley’s Sir Toby. Stephen Fry’s slightly dim Malvolio is funny but there is more to the role than he finds there. Barnett’s Viola and Joseph Timms’ Sebastian are about as close in looks as male-female twins can be, but Barnett’s strained words convey more emotion than meaning while Timms’ are a model of lucidity. Feste can become a kind of genius of the play, but Peter Hamilton Dyer’s hangdog character never takes on that role and his songs never seem to sum up the action.
Why Maria is so intent on getting revenge on Malvolio is often not clear, except for her general dislike of his imperious ways. Here Chahidi has given Maria the motivation of using the trick on Malvolio as the way to win Sir Toby as a husband, thus a way to join the aristocracy she serves. Indeed, this Maria chuffs Malvolio with the same desire for social climbing that she is guilty of. Chahidi makes this brilliant angle so dominant, that it completely eclipses the Toby-Aguecheek plot.
Often productions wait until the twins are both present to create a “natural perspective” before Orsino rather unbelievably decides to marry someone he thought just a moment before was a boy. Here Brennan and Barnett create an intriguing scene early on to anticipate this conclusion. In Act 2, when Orsino asks Viola-as-Cesario “But died thy sister of her love, my boy?” the lovesick duke turns to face Viola and for the longest time the two become lost in each other’s eyes as if unavoidably attracted to each other.. Orsino’s sudden command, “To her in haste”, to send Cesario back to Olivia, then appears as his embarrassed attempt to wipe out any sense of attraction for the boy he had been gazing at.
This may be the best Twelfth Night ever seen on Broadway, or even off-Broadway, but it certainly does not live up to the immoderate encomiums critics have heaped on it. Brian Bedford has found greater depths in Malvolio (2006) than Stephen Fry does, William Hutt more in Feste (2001) than Peter Hamilton Dyer and Tara Rosling (2001) than Samuel Barnett. While “original practices” may appeal to those who like their Shakespeare tidily ensconced in “Ye Olde Englande”, this hardly accurate attempt at accuracy should not become an end in itself. With no set, costume or lighting changes, what this Twelfth Night proved most is how little Shakespeare needs to succeed. All Shakespeare needs are actors who fully understand his words and can completely communicate their meaning. It also doesn’t hurt to have a director on hand who understands how all the characters and scenes fit into the architecture of the play and convey the play’s themes. This, more than period dress and candlelight, is what gets to the heart of Shakespeare.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: (from top) Samuel Barnett as Viola and Mark Rylance as Olivia; Paul Chaidi as Maria; Stephen Fry as Malvolio. ©2013 Joan Marcus.
For tickets, visit www.shakespearebroadway.com.
2013-12-22
New York, NY: Twelfth Night