Twelfth Night
It's a Shakespearean comedy, so that means love. But it's also a regular comedy, so that means...comedy. At one extreme, Director Kathleen Marshall places Biko Eisen-Martin's Orsino, a lovesick duke, who is deadly serious about his wooing — in the manner of the truly besotted. It's the rest of the world that can afford to laugh at love, especially when Orsino winds up in the sights of Viola, a stranger in town who finds herself compelled to play a man's part, and then further compelled to woo the fair Olivia on Orsino's behalf. And love being the great comedian that it is, Olivia promptly falls for Viola's boyish front. These two aren't quite as serious as Orsino, if only because they recognize the absurdity of their situations, but they still bear a kind of noble seriousness — as opposed to the drunken Toby Belch, the more ridiculous because he is nobility, and the pompous Malvolio (Greg Germann), the most ridiculous because he thinks he should be. They're at the comedy end of things. In the center stands the Fool, gravely goofy.
The Globe has mounted a genuinly great production here, playing Shakespeare straight and letting the play's own merry madness do the very funny work. It's tempting to regard it as a mighty contest between the powerful and extreme characters of Eisen-Martin and Germann, but that would be unfair to the rest of the cast, especially Medina Senghore's magnificent and magnetic Olivia and Cornell Womack's rascally Belch.
When
Ongoing until Sunday, July 9, 2023
Hours
| Sundays, 8pm |
| Tuesdays, 8pm |
| Wednesdays, 8pm |
| Thursdays, 8pm |
| Fridays, 8pm |
| Saturdays, 8pm |