Review: A Practically Perfect TWELFTH NIGHT at Pittsburgh Public

Nothing makes a critic with a soft heart happier than a show about which not a single bad thing can be said. The Pittsburgh Public Theater's production of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, as directed by Ted Pappas, is one of those rare, flawless gems of a show, which I can say despite confessing that I generally do not care much for Twelfth Night on the page or the stage. This production has amplified the things I like, and diminished the things I do not, almost as if it were custom made to please me- but it will undoubtedly please all other audiences lucky enough to see the show.

Pappas has set the show in Illyria, but his Illyria is not the exotic Yugoslavian kingdom Shakespeare imagined. Rather, this Illyria is a vaguely British seaside resort for the upper class, circa 1912 (albeit with a number of charmingly anachronistic touches to shake things up). Here, the idle rich play out their days wining, dining, wooing and mostly enjoying beautiful music, an element played up heavily in the text and staging. The constant music, whether songs and ballads, underscoring, or sung snatches of doggerel, is composed by Michael Moricz and presented in a clever mingling of pre-recorded and live elements.

The plot of Twelfth Night is essentially a Shakespearean remix, in which the Bard took stock of his career at about the halfway point and created a mash-up of plot points, characters and ideas from his past successes. Many characters are expies (if you're not familiar with trope terminology, an "expy" is a character created to be as similar as possible to a character in another story without actually BEING them) of past Shakespearean characters. In fact, the seemingly gay merchant seaman Antonio (played with a wonderful, Stallone-esque simplicity and openness by Drew Stone), is commonly considered to be a direct cameo appearance of the queer merchant of the same name from The Merchant of Venice. While most productions focus on the love triangle of mistaken identity, with the antics of the comic characters as a B-plot, Pappas has reframed the show as a farce more than a romance, allowing the romance and cross-dressing plots to appear as B-plot to the almost plotless A-plot of Sir Toby and the gang's extraordinarily wild weekend.

Sir Toby Belch (John Ahlin) is still as fat, flatulent, roguish and full of himself as anyone could wish, though Pappas has reconceived him not as a disreputable knight errant but as a drunk and disreputable nobleman. The plot, as it were, focuses on his attempts to keep living the good life by wringing all the money he can out of upper-class twit Sir Andrew Aguecheek (a deliciously daffy Daniel Krell), who believes in his foolishness that he has a chance to marry the wealthy Olivia (Gretchen Egolf). Sir Toby, along with henchmen Fabian the chauffer (Tony Bingham) and Maria the housekeeper (Helena Ruoti), spend a chaotic weekend drinking and pranking, until they go a little too far in their attempts to ridicule uptight and pretentious butler Malvolio (Brent Harris, in a pitch-perfect performance).

Sandwiched in all this mayhem is the traditional A-plot, in which shipwrecked Viola (Carly Street) disguises herself as a man named Cesario to gain employment as manservant to Duke Orsino (Timothy D. Stickney). As Viola, who is all too often portrayed as a sighing, lovelorn pawn of fate, Carly Street is a revelation, wringing humor from a role that many other actresses have failed to make funny. Dressed in a gleefully anachronistic 80s power-suit and pompadour, Viola commits entirely to the madcap atmosphere of Illyria. As she maintains her secret identity, falls for Orsino, and inadvertently seduces the melting ice queen Olivia, Street portrays a Viola who is genuinely having a good time. It's madness, and she loves it. Her physically energetic, awkward Viola, rife with stammering, pratfalls and adorkable behavior, recalls Michael J. Fox in the Back to the Future trilogy. Egolf's Olivia is also in keeping with the farcical style of the show, hinting at the fiery girl trapped inside the mournful and icy woman. Stickney, as the Duke, has a less showy role, but he sells his moments of comedy and drama well, and commits wholeheartedly to the Duke's passionate love of music. (Special mention should be made here of Chad Bender as Curio, the Duke's pianist/valet. He both acts and plays exquisitely.)

If this production has a secret weapon, it is Mitchell Jarvis as Feste. Conceived by Shakespeare as a jester and minstrel who begged for a living, Jarvis's Feste is here presented as a once-wealthy cabaret singer fallen upon hard times. His suit is threadbare and his hat is busted, but this endearingly louche figure still finds himself welcome wherever a song or a quick wit is appreciated. Anyone familiar with Jarvis from Rock of Ages or his "Keith Stone" commercials and viral videos has some idea what to expect from him, and he does not disappoint. Feste is smooth, sarcastic, camp as all hell in his own unique way, and forever ready with a smirk or a theatrical sigh. And then there's that voice; ranged like a baritone-tenor but timbred more like a female alto, Jarvis has one of the most striking and peculiar voices since Mandy Patinkin, and Moricz's original musical settings of Shakespeare's songs take full advantage of this evocative quality. (Moricz isn't wrong to call Jarvis's singing "provocative" in the program- I heard the couple behind me say "I wish they made a soundtrack of this" as they left the theatre.)

Feste finds his foil in Malvolio, of course, and Brent Harris, who played an exemplary Oscar Wilde in L'Hotel, fully embraces both the stick in the mud pompousness of Malvolio in the first half, and the all-but-unhinged Malvolio of the second half, with his id unleashed and rampaging around the stage. There is, of course, some tragedy to his portrayal; much as Malvolio is, to put it bluntly, rather an asshole, the torment he undergoes is far outside his just deserts. It's hard to look at the ever-escalating series of pranks he endures today and not think of cyberbullying and gaslighting. Misled by false correspondence, humiliated, arrested, forced to commit blasphemy and finally to question his own sanity, it's little wonder Malvolio swears revenge and leaves without a happy ending at the play's close- and frankly, one would do well to put Malvolio on suicide watch. Harris walks a tightrope between the real, the ludicrous and the tragic in his performance, and it lends an interesting feeling of slowly unwinding chaos to the whole evening.

The Marx Brothers never did an adaptation of Shakespeare, but if they did, it would probably be something like Twelfth Night at the Public. Fans of carefully constructed comic mayhem should be sure not to miss this one. (Side note: Pittsburgh Public, if you're reading this, PLEASE put out a cast recording of "The Shakespeare Songs of the Public;" I am still humming "Sweet Lovers Love the Spring" from As You Like It over five years ago!)

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