Word: malvolio
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Directed by Josh Edelman '01, Twelfth Night offers character misreading so severe that they must be intentional; while an interesting concept, it is unfortunate that Shakespeare's play offers virtually no support for the interpretations presented on stage. The most blatant example arises in the portrayal of Malvolio, Lady Olivia's Puritanical steward, by Paul Monteleoni '01. Though it is unclear at what point we may draw the line separating directoral control and actor-based development, it seems that someone involved in the character's evolution should have reread the text. Resembling nothing so much as a demented Muppet, Monteleoni...
...real stars of the evening are Andrew Barth, as Iago and Romeo, and Stephanie Smith as Mercutio and Desdemona. It is tempting to imagine them as Viola and Malvolio or Beatrice and Benedick in some future HRDC production. Barth is wonderfully vicious as Iago, and his Romeo, while predictably over-the-top, retains more grace and wit than the buffoonish comedy demands Smith's comic zeal and exuberance make her the focus of every scene she is in; her Mercutio is delightful, and her Desdemona is as perfect a performance of that sadly banal role as could be imagined...
Twelfth Night The most imaginative response to the debate over the National Endowment for the Arts was this La Jolla (Calif.) Playhouse staging, which cunningly conceived the priggish functionary Malvolio as a precursor of Senator Jesse Helms. Far from merely polemic, the production was visually the most ravishing at any U.S. theater all year...
Michelle Pfeiffer, an Oscar nominee this year for Dangerous Liaisons, makes her stage debut as the grieving countess Olivia. Jeff Goldblum (The Fly) is her pettish steward Malvolio, John Amos (Roots) her drunken uncle Sir Toby Belch and Gregory Hines (The Cotton Club) Toby's companion in ribaldry, the jester Feste. Stephen Collins (Tattinger's) is the duke who desires Olivia, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (The Color of Money) the girl-masquerading-as- a -pageboy sent to plead his case. Among other screen and stage stalwarts rounding out the troupe is Charlaine Woodard (Ain't Misbehavin') as the merrily scheming...
...gentrified aristocracy. Jack Aranson (Sir Toby Belch) and Francis Cuka (Maria) also provide the play with some of its most amusing--and bawdy--humor in their defiance of courtly propriety. And by far the most hilarious performance of the evening is Joseph Costa's portrayal of the cantakeorous Malvolio, whose vanity and self-importance trap him into--among other ludicrously comic gestures--adorning himself in yellow stockings...