Word: berghof
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Shakespeare was a pretty imaginative fellow. And director Berghof is one of the most acutely imaginative men in the business (as any one of his recent productions will testify). Put the two men together, and the result was bound to be unusual and worth careful examination...
...Berghof's thinking must have run something as follows: "This is a festive occasion, so I want a festive production. The author has obligingly given a good deal of license in the second part of his complete title--Twelfth Night; or, What You Will. The most famous words in the whole play are, oddly enough, the very first ones: 'If music be the food of love, play on.' Ha, look at the next words: 'Give me excess of it.' And Shakespeare has filled his text with references to songs. Of course we can't have singing without dancing...
Whatever one may think of this line of reasoning, it must be admitted that Berghof has succeeded in doing almost everything he set out to do. His production makes use of the fine two-story basic stage that Robert O'Hearn designed for the Cambridge Drama Festival's shows in Sanders Theatre. High up, Lester Polakov (whose costumes add much to the general lightness and brightness) has affixed a number of white, stylized orange-tree tops. And by having spikes driven into the poles, Berghof has enabled people to scamper up to a third level. In the garden scene where...
...Berghof's staging of the outdoor barbecue and drinking party participated in by Sir Toby Belch and his cronies is a brilliant elaboration. It is also leisurely: the carousers join in singing, one after another, a wonderful series of catches and glees--and not just snatches, but entire pieces. These, and the rest of the extensive musical score for the show, were composed in a sure-handed, neo-Elizabethan style by Andre Singer (his instrumentation is comprised of flute, trumpet, harp, and a sizable battery of percussion...
...Viola-Aguecheek duel is lengthy (there must be five minutes without a word), but hilarious all the way. And to inspirit the combatants, Berghof has his Dancing Zany beat a drum during the dueling--an historically authentic touch. There are many other instances of inspired staging. And at the end, instead of having everyone exit and leave Feste alone to sing the closing song, Berghof brings everybody on stage, even Malvolio, and has each principal sing a solo bit as in a massed opera buffa finale...