Past Reviews

Regional Reviews: Washington, D.C.

Twelfth Night
Shakespeare Theatre Company
Review by Susan Berlin | Season Schedule

Also see Susan's reviews of Annie, Crazy for You, and Nina Simone: Four Women


Antoinette Robinson
Photo by Scott Suchman
The production of Twelfth Night now at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Sidney Harman Hall in Washington is, in many ways, transporting. Not only do director Ethan McSweeney and his design team welcome the audience into an unexpected world of emotions and confused identities, of sadness in the midst of joy and the other way around, they center the staging concept on the very theme of transportation.

Lee Savage's scenic design includes audience seating on the sides of the wide stage, which places the opening of William Shakespeare's story in the gate area of an airport. In this fantasy-contemporary retelling of the play, the shipwreck that separates Viola (Antoinette Robinson) from her twin brother Sebastian (Paul Deo Jr.) is replaced with a plane crash, and Scott Zielinski's lighting design conveys the varied moods and settings.

As depicted by McSweeney and costume designer Jennifer Moeller, Illyria, the city where the rescued Viola finds herself, is a place where people wear extravagant costumes and seem a little overly dramatic. For her safety, Viola has dressed herself in men's clothes (a bright green suit) and, portraying herself as a young man named Cesario, takes employment with the lovesick Duke Orsino (Bhavesh Patel, in a suit apparently made from a Jackson Pollock canvas). Orsino wishes to marry Olivia (Hannah Yelland), who lives in isolation after the death of her brother (and wears head-to-toe black), but her interests fall on someone else.

Robinson is a magnificent Viola, by turns headstrong, dreamy yet determined, resolute even when circumstances seem to make no sense. Yelland is her match as a radiant Olivia, slipping out of emotional reserve into unbridled passion on the slimmest of pretexts; unfortunately, Patel fades into the background by comparison with these two vibrant women. The other standout is Heath Saunders as the melancholy clown Feste, who sings and plays guitar throughout.

The secondary plot, concerning an elaborate practical joke on Olivia's pompous steward Malvolio (Derek Smith), is usually played strictly for laughs, but McSweeney's interpretation leaves a bitter taste. Where Malvolio is usually portrayed as a preening moralist, scolding Olivia's drunken uncle Sir Toby Belch (Andrew Weems) for his misbehavior, Smith makes him more of a bureaucrat doing his best to keep Olivia's home in order, which makes Malvolio's subsequent humiliation sting. (A particular prop that appears in the opening sequence plays an important part here, reappearing in the manner of Chekhov's gun that must be fired.)

Shakespeare Theatre Company
Twelfth Night
November 14th - December 20th, 2017
By William Shakespeare
Viola: Antoinette Robinson
Feste: Heath Saunders
Sir Toby Belch: Andrew Weems
Maria: Emily Townley
Sir Andrew Aguecheek: Jim Lichtscheidl
Orsino: Bhavesh Patel
Curio: Matthew Deitchman
Olivia: Hannah Yelland
Malvolio: Derek Smith
Antonio: David Bishins
Sebastian: Paul Deo Jr.
Fabian: Tyler Bowman or Koral Kent
Ensemble: Jack Henry Doyle, Chelsea Mayo, Maggie Thompson, Jeff Allen Young
Directed by Ethan McSweeney
Harman Center for the Arts, Sidney Harman Hall
610 F St. N.W.
Washington, DC
Ticket Information: 202-547-1122 or 877-487-8849 or www.shakespearetheatre.org