Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night is Shakespeare’s final ‘Elizabethan comedy’ and has remained popular with audiences world-wide since it was first performed in London in1602. It is a tale about the appetite of desire for possessions, food and drink as well as love. In it, Shakespeare placed various comic devices he had previously used as early as The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Comedy of Errors, namely mistaken identity and a young woman disguising herself as a man. The issue of disguise is important for in many ways everyone in this play is trapped behind a mask that progressively becomes more and more burdensome. Subsequently whilst there is a great deal of joy and fun in this play there are also elements of sadness and melancholy. Twelfth Night is a journey into a world where nothing is exactly as it seems; it is parting with the past and a step towards an unknown future.

The Company Theatre Mumbai are performing Twelfth Night, or their version of it, in Adelaide as part of the Oz-Asia Festival – and it is absolutely wonderful! It is performed in an intimate tent at the Oz-Asia Festival site next to the Adelaide Festival Centre, and in Hindi.

There are two screens on either side of the small thrust stage and whilst you may not get Shakespeare’s original poetry and language, nonetheless, the plot and great characters are there – well, nearly all there. There is no point in being purist about this production from India, directed by Atul Kumar Mittal and adapted by Amitosh Nagpal. It is simply a wonderful night in the theatre, and completely true to the spirit of Shakespeare’s play – as well as the meta-theatrical conventions of the Elizabethan theatre in its intimacy, direct address to an audience, and self-referencing to the nature of performance. The joy and sheer fun that this small and energetic company generate is infectious. I sat smiling along with the rest of the opening night audience from beginning to end, delighting in everything they did.

It is essentially a musical version of the play - ‘Bollywood’ meets Shakespeare – but this is highly successful with the songs either forwarding or commenting on the action. Whilst it is for the most part extremely joyous there are moments of great poignancy and subtle depth, particularly involving the melancholy of desire with the characters of Viola and Olivia.

The production captures the heartache beautifully, exemplified by the only time Shakespeare’s language is used, when Viola, alone on-stage, expresses herself in reference to being the only daughter of her father. This concludes Act One with Viola lying on the floor, isolated and alone. I have seen a lot of productions of Twelfth Night, and even directed Ms Cate Blanchett as Viola when she was at NIDA, but I have never seen a production that so movingly captured Viola’s sorrow.

As with any production of Shakespeare’s plays there is always something new to be experienced, due to the interpretation of the artists involved. This production has many great highlights and whilst it may be a bit churlish to single any one actor out from this terrific ensemble, nonetheless, the actor who played Sebastian was simply hilarious. I never would have thought I would see a production of Twelfth Night in which the Sebastian would steal the show – but in this case he nearly did. To give a brief hint at what is going on, the actor who plays Sebastian (I can’t give his name as it wasn’t provided in the program) pops up every now and then to remind the audience that he is Viola’s lost twin brother but has only a few lines. However, as the actor also states, due to budget limitations, he must also play Sebastian’s companion, Antonio. The result is just sheer fun. Another moment is when Olivia and Sebastian finally meet and make love. In this scene, that involves undressing, the comic excellence of the two actors is brilliant.

There are so many other comic highlights in this production – e.g. when Olivia kisses Viola (as Caesario) and half the moustache comes off and is on Olivia’s face; that right from the beginning Orsino is aware of a fullness in Viola’s (Caesario’s) chest/breast, expressed with multiple double-takes by both actors; and one I particularly enjoyed - that the actor playing Malvolio gets annoyed when he enters for a scene with either Viola or Olivia declaring that they should be on first and he discovers them – they are ruining his performance (hilarious).

This is truly a wonderful, wonderful night in the theatre.

Tony Knight