Review: TWELFTH NIGHT at Clayton Community Theatre

Twelfth Night:  It marks the end of Christmas and in Shakespeare’s day it was celebrated with great festivity—cakes and ale, wassailing and singing, merriment abounding.  A very good time was had by all.

The Clayton Community Theatre has opened a quite wonderful production of the Bard’s play of that name.  It’s directed with an inspired and graceful hand by Heather Sartin.  She is a lady who clearly deeply loves (but does not worship) Shakespeare.  And she gets everything right. 

You know the tale:  Viola is shipwrecked on the shores of Illyria.  She fears that her twin brother Sebastian is drowned.  Like any young heroine in those days travelling alone in a strange country she disguises herself as a man—“Cesario”.  She finds employment in the court of the lovesick duke Orsino (with whom she instantly falls in love).  But Orsino sends her as an emissary of his love to the countess Olivia who (being in mourning for seven years) will have nothing to do with men.  But Olivia, despite herself, falls head-over-heels in love with “Cesario”.

It's almost Chekhovian—everybody’s in love with the wrong person.

And oh, by the way, this is an all-female cast!

There is something magic about a cast with a common gender (if it’s not trying to make some political statement).  Recently in St. Louis I’ve been greatly impressed with The Wolves (about a girls’ soccer team) and with WRENS (about the British Women’s Royal Navy Service)—all women.  In my long directing career I’ve done just one production with only men (Stones in His Pockets);  it was very special.  There is a rapport, there is a camaraderie, that is impossible with a gender-mixed cast.

Well, that camaraderie is glowingly obvious in this Twelfth Night.  Heather Sartin and her cast have wisely approached this play as simply fun!  The gender-confused romantic situation is charming and funny.  Every player is deeply invested in her role.

In a comic sub-plot Olivia’s tippling uncle Sir Toby Belch, his silly feckless drinking buddy Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Olivia’s gentle-woman Maria plot to embarrass Oliva’s steward, the priggish, puritanical Malvolio.

The cast is filled with talents that rise above “community theatre” standards.  Claire Coffey is splendid as Viola—bright and articulate and filled with physical grace.  Deborah Roby, as Orsino, gives him a lovely, convincing masculine ardor.  Olivia is played by Katie Puglisi;  she’s warm and gracious even as she stiff-arms the Duke’s proffered love. 

“Downstairs” we find Ann Vega as a most delightful Sir Toby—filled with ale and a bumptious, roistering comic spirt.  The lovely Carolyn Bergdolt plays Sir Andrew, and animates him with a wildly silly vulnerable spirit.  Therese Melnykov gives Maria immense wit and authority.  And poor old Malvolio!  Erin Struckhoff gives him just the right balance of arrogance and pathos.

One very bright star in this evening is Bryn Sentnor as Feste, Oliva’s court fool.  This actress—a head-and-a-half shorter than anyone else on stage—is sheer, exuberant talent!  With astonishingly fine diction and projection she simply conquers the stage.  Such physical grace and precision!  Such comic timing!  And she deftly strums on her lute (well, maybe it’s a uke) to emphasize various points in the dialogue.  She’s a wonder!

Supporting roles are full of talent too.   Emily Murphree makes a forceful Sebastian (and is quite believably Viola’s twin);  Jan Meyer and Kristen Meyer (a mother-daughter duo) play Fabian (antic) and Antonio (gracefully gallant);  Lauren Rubin, Nachalah “Catie” Duclerne, Lucy Sappington, and Laurie Lynn Shelton ably fulfill smaller roles.

A very essential part of the evening’s great success lies with “The Revelers Guild”.  The evening opens with a pre-show concert by this period vocal ensemble.  It consists of five members of the cast as singers, plus instrumentalists Hannah Martin (flute), Rosemary Paeltz (bodhrán/clarinet), Kellann Struckhoff (trumpet), and Megan Page Wiegert (guitar).  As Shakespeare would have wanted, this group provides incidental, transition, and dramatically emphatic music through every scene.  Never intrusive, always supportive, and all-in-all a delight!  No musical director is mentioned in the program, which says only, “Musical landscape created by Heather Sartin and The Revelers Guild.”

The greatly gifted Ms. Sartin seems to be the very heart of this show.  She also designed the graceful set.  And I am sure that it was she who ensured that every single actor truly understood every single word spoken upon the stage; that’s all too rare with Shakespeare.

And it was a tightly paced ninety minutes!  Hooray!

Costumes, by Rob Corbett, are attractive and properly period.  Nathan Schroeder contributes his considerable skills as lighting designer.

Many “professional” companies struggle with Shakespeare—transposing him and transforming him and politicizing him and experimenting with him and, in the end, being embarrassed by their unsuccessful productions.  How can it be that a small community theatre can get such beauty and humor in a Shakespeare production?  I think it is simply by understanding him and being true to him.

Twelfth Night plays at the Clayton Community Theatre through July 21.

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