Word: orsino
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...blame. I bet Shakespeare wishes he'd never added the subtitie "or, What You Will" to this play. At any rate, London has turned Tweifth Night into a comedy of errors. Imagine, if you can, a neoionic tempietto on stage right, with a hideous stained-glass dome (this is Orsino's lair; no wonder he says. "The appetite may sicken, and so die."); and, on the left, a two-story pavilion with Victorian gimcrackery and shades that are raised and lowered with annoying frequency (Olivia's summer resort, and last resort). In the center we have a candy-cane flagpole...
...nose and chin. The other two superlative performances were the Dancing Zany of Geoffrey Holder, who designed the choreography and also sang; and the light-footed Singing Zany of Russell Oberlin, the world's finest countertenor. In other major roles, Fritz Weaver's Malvolio, Zachary Scott's Orsino, and George Mathews' Sir Toby were disappointing...
Zachary Scott manages to convey Orsino's melancholy, but more by appearance and manner than by speech. And he has the pleasure of being wheeled about in a handsome mollusk-shell chariot. Patricia Cutts is a soft Olivia, in love with mourning and "of beauty truly blent" as the mistress of an enormous household...
Shakespeare in Russian is a wondrous thought. But it has been done and Lenfilm Studio's production of Twelfth Night is done quite well. There are a few perilous moments. When Viola first sees Duke Orsino whom she is to wed, she rips off her unfeminine cloak and, radiant in something like a strapless evening gown, exclaims (in Russian), "I'll serve him." The next shot shows the duke, his fair hair rippling in the wind, gazing like a bowsprit at the horizon...
...comic roles and in some of the serious ones, the Russians make humorious Italians. Against Katya Luchko's fine Viola, Anna Larionova is a rather large Olivia. As Duke Orsino and Sir Toby Belch, V. Medvediev and M. Yanshin are, respectively, stolid and solid. In a funny role the latter is very funny. The rest of Sir Toby's circle is just as good. Sir Andrew Aguecheek (G. Vipin), Maria (A. Lisyanskaya), the clown (B. Freindlich), and Fabian (S. Filippov) conspire wonderfully with their hands, grunts, and songs as well as their (Russian) words. Though his role loses depth...