Amaka Umeh as Cesario/Viola Photo by Stoo Metz
Shakespeare By the Sea’s production of Twelfth Night directed by Drew Douris-O’Hara is a really beautiful example of what kind of magic can happen when a director really builds their vision around the company of actors they have rather than trying to slot the actors into an already rigidly formed idea in the rehearsal hall. Douris-O’Hara has imagined this story taking place against the backdrop of a Vaudeville house in its heyday, and has found ways to transform each of the characters into people who might be found in and around this milieu in the early decades of the twentieth century. The anchor for the Vaudeville house is Feste, played by Zach Colangelo, Shakespeare’s witty jester turned here into a jazz singer. Everything about this production is vibrantly creative, and the conceit works so well, not just in making the production unique, but also by making it come alive in a way that feels like the modern historical fiction that folks today love both to read and to binge.
The three main characters even have names that would fit in flawlessly in any circle of young people in Halifax today. Viola and Sebastian are twins separated during a shipwreck. Viola disguises herself as a young man named Cesario and finds a position working as a page to the Duke Orsino. Orsino is obsessively in love with Olivia, who wants nothing to do with him. He keeps sending Cesario to her with more and more letters and grand romantic gestures, but Olivia complicates things by falling in love with Cesario. This is awkward for Viola, as she has fallen in love with Orsino. There is a subplot involving Olivia’s raucous drunkard uncle, Sir Toby Belch, and his pals Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Maria, and Feste, who decide to play a revenge prank on Malvolio, Olivia’s absolutely humourless steward, which descends into playful chaos. Might Sebastian come to his sister’s rescue and see that everyone lives happily ever after?
There is a temptation, I think, for actors playing Viola to play up the artifice of her costume as Cesario for comedic effect, for Viola to be a less skilled actor than the person who is playing her. Perhaps it is also due to the fact that we presume Viola is straight, since she falls in love with Orsino, that actors tend toward allowing bits of her femininity to shine through the façade. Amaka Umeh here, however, becomes Cesario entirely. Even when Viola speaks to the audience, realizing that Olivia has fallen in love with her, and she is alone, we see how similar Viola’s own personality and responses are to Cesario’s, and that they are not neatly divided by gender. You can see how much fun Viola is having with the freedom Cesario affords her when sparring with Olivia, but it is very much the freedom to be authentically herself, not just a character that she is temporarily inhabiting. It is such a beautifully grounded performance by Umeh; they find a lot of humour and a lot of heart in Viola, making her a character that the audience really falls in love with too.
Patrick Jeffrey, Raeesa Lalani, and Matt Lacas play the rowdy trio of troublemakers: Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Maria, and Sir Toby Belch. It’s difficult to find the right balance for these three characters, and then Feste as well, without them all sort of conflating into one big zany batch of clown soup, but Douris-O’Hara does a good job of allowing each one to have their moments and their own distinctive brand of silliness, and making sure that while they may be grating to Olivia and Malvolio, their shenanigans are continually entertaining for the audience. Matt Lacas especially walks a razor-thin line between being a little bit charming and a little bit lecherous, and just a smidgen ominous, but in a way that never overshadows our ability to enjoy him. It helps that his relationship with Maria is consensual, which feels very modern and decent of Shakespeare.
Daniel Nwobi plays Sebastian, a beautiful counter to Umeh’s Viola, and he highlights how funny it is that Shakespeare has Sebastian fall in love on sight since it helps facilitate the untangling of the love triangle. Jade Douris-O’Hara plays Olivia, a woman whose economic status gives her the freedom to speak her truth and to be forceful in both her declarations of disgust and of desire. So much of the delight in the play is in watching Olivia and Cesario sparring with one another and Olivia’s sparring turning more and more flirtatious. Chris George is excellent as the much-maligned Malvolio, the classic pompous British butler reduced to cartoonish levels of humiliation at the hands of our merry (and bawdy) revellers. Zach Colangelo as Feste is the character that belongs most ardently to the Vaudeville motif. She both speaks and sings into an old fashioned microphone throughout the play, and also plays music on a phonograph, as we get the sense that she is at least partially responsible for conjuring up this story for us. Colangelo has such a gorgeous voice, and it is so beautifully suited to the jazzy numbers that she sings during the show. Feste is frequently referred to by other characters as a ‘Fool’, but it’s apparent, in fact, how dazzlingly quick witted they are, and that they encourage the other characters to think more critically about things through their clever repartee. Colangelo always keeps Feste at an arms length from the other characters- she is watching them as much as she is one of them- and when she cackles and cackles and cackles at them, you get the sense that she knows all their secrets and all their bullshit, and how foolish they are in both.
I always enjoy Drew Douris-O’Hara’s rollicking Shakespeare adaptations (this play is just 100 minutes long), and I am impressed that he has reduced this play to a cast of eight actors, but it’s even more difficult to figure out Antonio’s story arc in this version than in a non-abridged production. We are still struck by the intensity of Antonio’s love for Sebastian, but then Antonio really gets wholly abandoned at the end because Jade Douris-O’Hara is busy playing Olivia. It didn’t detract from how much I enjoyed the production, but I think there is more to be explored within Antonio’s relationship with Sebastian too, especially in a production that is putting a queerer spin on the story.
Téa Stewart’s costume design really evokes the spirit of Vaudeville; you can imagine all these clothes being pulled out of an old wooden trunk in the attic of a Pantages Theatre somewhere. Feste is the unapologetically queer torch singer, Sir Tobey Belch the Vaudeville clown, Sebastian and Cesario the youthful newsies (but also adorably bookish in their glasses), and Olivia the ingenue in her flapper dress.
Eliza Rhinelander’s music is glorious. The recurring motif throughout the show is a sea shanty if it were penned by one of the Gershwins. The score roots us so beautifully in the Tin Pan Alley Era, and the sea shanty theme reflects the shipwreck that separated Viola from Sebastian in the first place, the fact that the play takes place on the Coast of Illyria, and also alludes to the place where we are all seated watching the play in Point Pleasant Park, which is also on the coast of the ocean.
Of course in its original production all the characters in Twelfth Night were played by men and boys, so the homoerotic implications were inherent whether the characters were in straight relationships or Queer coded misadventures like with Viola and Cesario. When women started playing themselves onstage, however, suddenly the ending of plays like Twelfth Night became more rigidly heteronormative, with the two ladies marrying the two gentlemen, and for a long time this was accepted by the mainstream as the only possible ending for the story. Now though, there IS another possibility. If pesky Shakespeare weren’t pushing so hard for the two ladies to end up marrying the two gentlemen Olivia and Viola could potentially end up together instead. In a production like this one where Douris O’Hara and Umeh have such great chemistry together it’s well within the realm of possibility that some audience members might not, in fact, be rooting for the neat ending that Shakespeare intended, and this creates an interesting modern tension and calls into question the idea of this comedy offering the same ‘happily ever after’ to everyone.
I loved this production so much, and I was so excited about the music and the concept that I had to resist the urge to go up to the actors at intermission and rave about how great the show is, and how terrific they all are in it, while they were still in the headspace of their performance and their characters.
Twelfth Night gets produced often, both here in Nova Scotia and all over the world, but you will never see a production like this one anywhere else ever again, unless this one gets revived some day.
Truly, this Twelfth Night has had greatness thrust enthusiastically upon it.
Shakespeare By the Sea’s production of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night plays at the Cambridge Battery inside Point Pleasant Park (5530 Point Pleasant Drive, Halifax) at 7:00pm on the following days:
August 14th, August 16th, August 18, August 20, August 22, August 24, August 28, and August 30. And at 1:00pm at the Halifax Central Library on August 17th (this performance is free!).
Tickets are available on a sliding scale from PWYC to $50.00. $50.00 tickets include front row centre seats, all other seating that includes chairs costs $30.00, and the PWYC pricing allows you to sit where you would like in the Cambridge Battery and you can bring your own chair. Tickets are available HERE, or at the door the day of the show.
Shakespeare By the Sea is wheelchair accessible and anyone with accessibility needs can book a ride from the upper parking lot in Point Pleasant Park to the Cambridge Battery venue. Dogs are welcome, and all performances are Relaxed Performances. For more information about accessibility please visit this website or call 902.422.0295 for more information.
