I have had three recent encounters with Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Twelfth Night is one of the better comedies. It starts with “If music be the food of love, play on” and includes many of the expected elements of the bard’s comedies: mistaken identities, misplaced love, secret marriages, drunken rogues, and a fool.
In December we made a family trip downtown to see Twelfth Night done at the Lincoln Park Conservatory by a group called Midsommer Flight. Midsommer Flight began performing in the Chicago area by doing free Shakespeare in the summer. In 2012 Artistic Director Beth Wolf first mounted a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In succeeding years the company did Romeo & Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing and the Scottish play. All have been in the summer and all have been free. I had seen Much Ado and the Scottish play before going to Twelfth Night, and all were great productions. For the summer productions it’s bring your own chair and meal, and it’s general seating (which means come early for the best seat location). This was the first year that Midsommer put on a play indoors. The Lincoln Park Conservatory was a delightful place to see Twelfth Night, surrounded as we were by plants and vegetation in the middle of winter. It was still free, but seating was limited so we had to reserve tickets as soon as the opportunity arose. The play included original music performed live. A CD was for sale, so we got it, of course, and have enjoyed listening to it at home. All of Midsommer Flight’s productions are free, so obviously you can’t beat the price! Check out their website, http://midsommerflight.com/. Maybe I’ll see you at their play this summer – just don’t get there before me and take my spot!
For my birthday in February, I received a DVD copy of London’s Globe Theatre’s “original practices” production of Twelfth Night. What is “original practices”? Essentially it means that the production is put on as close to the way it would have been done by Shakespeare’s group as possible. The words are pronounced as they would have been then, the costumes are made of material that was around then, and of course, all the roles are played by men (or boys). This production was originally mounted in London around 2005, and we saw it there--our first time seeing a play at London’s Globe Theatre. The production was later brought to the US where it was performed at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater although we did not go to see it again. The play was once again re-staged in London, and this DVD is a film of one of the recent performances. Note, this is a film of the stage play. It’s not a movie of Twelfth Night. You see the stage from several views, but all the action takes place on the stage. Viola is played by recent Academy Award winner Mark Rylance. Malvolio is played by Stephen Fry. The production was absolutely fabulous and the actors were great and there wasn’t anything not to like about the DVD-- except for the fact that it is a DVD. It’s not the same. When I watch a DVD of a play, it’s enjoyable and I love it; but given a choice between watching a DVD of a production and seeing a live presentation, I am going to go with the live presentation just about every time.
Which brings me to my latest encounter with Twelfth Night. As part of the Shakespeare 400 celebration in Chicago, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater brought Filter Theater of London’s production of Twelfth Night. Now if the Globe’s production was “original practices,” Filter’s production was simply original. The play is done on what appears to be a crowded musical concert stage with the actors often taking up instruments throughout the performance. Although somewhat abbreviated (90 minutes or so without an intermission) the production kept pretty much the entire story intact. Although all of the actors were good, I especially enjoyed Fergus O’Donnell’s Malvolio and Sandy Foster’s Feste/Maria. The play was fast paced and interactive to the point of throwing balls back and forth as well as a conga line from the crowd. This play is going to be gone soon (March 13th), but perhaps the theater company will be back with this production, or even better, with a different play.
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