Review: TWELFTH NIGHT at Antaeus Theatre

There have got to be at least 12 reasons to see director Armin Shimerman’s top-flight production of Shakespeare’s TWELFTH NIGHT for the Antaeus Theatre Company at the company’s Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center in Glendale. We could – and will! - talk about production concepts that work, creative cast doubling, height disparities and a solid musical score. This production features a winning set peopled by performers with long-established bonafides of knowing their ways around this language and this story.

But any discussion of the Antaeus TWELFTH should commence with the guy in the yellow stockings and cross garters. That would be Joel Swetow whose work as Illyria’s favorite social climber, Malvolio, is actually two different performances in one…and that’s not counting the fact that Swetow is also playing the sea captain and a police officer. However you tally it, the man is twelve kinds of marvelous.

Malvolio, it will be remembered, is the Countess Olivia of Illyria's (played by Veralyn Jones) uptight steward whose sour, holier-than-thou demeanor runs him afoul of revenge-minded Sir Toby  Belch (Rob Nagle), Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Alberto Isaac), Feste the fool (John Allee), Maria (Kitty Swink) and probably a bunch of other unidentified Illyrians that Shakespeare doesn’t bother to tell us about. After being on the business end of one Malvolio reprimand too many, Sir Toby, Maria and Aguecheek trick said Malvolio into believing Olivia is in love with him, getting him to make an utter ass of himself, after which he is thought to be a lunatic and thrown into a dark prison cell.

Prior to the gulling scene, we have watched Swetow, his hair slicked down, his voice deep and rummy, wearing a topcoat and brandishing an undersized staff, behaving like the a-hole we all know (and expect) Malvolio to be. At the end of Act II, the infamous “’Tis but fortune, All is fortune” scene, something rather marvelous happens. The actor unshackles himself - ripping off his jacket, mussing his hair into a disorderly but far more appealing frizz and pulling a small wooden plank out of his pants that presumably helped keep his back ramrod stiff (or perhaps the man has literally taken the stick out of his ass). And his voice changes, such that Malvolio the dutiful British manservant becomes Malvolio the hard-scrabbling working stiff. Given what we learn about who this guy is trying to become, it’s a smart transformation indeed, and Swetow brings it off beautifully. Greatness is indeed being “thrust upon him,” and this Malvolio is all in.

Lest anyone suggest that this TWELFTH NIGHT is fully THE MALVOLIO SHOW, it is not. Liza Seneca’s Viola emerges from the sea and transforms into her boy-impersonating Cesario persona (complete with mustache) before we ever get a single glimpse of her in her “woman’s weeds.”  Shattered by the presumed death of her brother, Sebastian, at sea, Viola has to pivot quickly away from finds herself in the court of David DeSantos’s Duke Orsino who is so caught up in his unrequited love for Olivia (and of any songs that remind him of this unrequited love) that he can get a bit handsy with the help. Seneca’s disguised Viola doesn’t mind; she loves this Duke after all. As in-over-her-head as Viola is, the actress has her more in control when fending off the advances of Olivia whom Viola/Ceasario has bewitched while wooing on behalf of Orsino.

Viola, Orsino and Olivia are all tied up in knots over one-sided affection. Within Shimerman’s Illyria, there is a boatload of that going around. Several of the actors have been cast older than traditionally played (Olivia, Aguecheek and Maria, most notably), suggesting that this might be their last chance at love, and by god they’re desperate to make it happen.  So the love and devotion that Antonio (Luis Kelly-Duarte) professes for Sebastian (Isaac Ybarra) is quite real and quite unreturned.  Isaac’s Aguecheek and Swink’s Maria both seem to have a thing for Sir Toby. For his part, Nagle’s Toby can take or leave this love business. More than anything else, the man is driven by money (the constant raids on Aguecheek’s wallet including a clumsy picket-pocketing effort drive this home.) Not only is he gray bearded, mocked and routinely swindled, Isaac’s Aguecheek is a bit of a runt who is positively dwarfed by Nagle and Swink.

Music is every inch the food of love and the fuel of this TWELFTH NIGHT thanks to the original compositions of music director John Allee who also plays the piano-playing Fool Feste. Sly and contemplative without ever being overbearing, Allee’s Feste is kept busy supplying the music in both courts and also taking up more of the Malvolio prank than Shakespeare actually wrote for the character. His renditions of “Wind and the Rain,” “Come Away Death” et al are across the board charming, especially the household raising “Hold Thy Piece” performed in rounds with the audience being encouraged to join in.

With everything resolved, and a few people partnered up, one could debate whether we’re to view this as a harmonious ending. Given the play’s closing image featuring Antonio and a duped and not so placated Olivia, I’m thinking not. Instead of “What You Will,” maybe this comedy should have been subtitled "Love Stinks."

Regardless, these Antaeus give plenty to delight and ponder.

Twelfth Night plays through March 17 at 110 East Broadway, Glendale.

To post a comment, you must register and login.