Review Roundup: What Did Critics Think of TWELFTH NIGHT at Yale Repertory Theatre?

TWELFTH NIGHT opened at Yale Repertory Theatre on March 15 and is running through April 6, 2019.

Separated from her twin brother in a shipwreck, Viola disguises herself as a man and falls in love with her new employer Orsino, who dotes on OIivia, who falls for Cesario, who's really Viola. And that's before Sebastian washes ashore in search of his missing sister. In director Carl Cofield's vibrant Afro-futurist production, Shakespeare's most wonderful romantic comedy brims with music and dances to the heartbeat of unrequited love.

Twelfth Night is Yale Rep's 2018-19 Will Power! production. The run includes 10:15AM performances on April 2, 3, and 4 2019, available to high school groups. For information on Will Power! performances, please call 203.432.9734 at yalerep@yale.edu.

Let's see what the critics had to say!

Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant: The humor is fresh. Sir Toby Belch, for a change, is not just a pile of fat jokes and drunk jokes. Chivas Michael makes this boisterous character a "Kings of Comedy"-type clown, dressed in bright red and with a permanent expression of sassy amazement. Toby's partner in prank-pulling, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, is played with wide-eyed whimsy by Abubakr Ali. The terrific comic actor Allen Gilmore plays the long-suffering Malvolio as a stuffy servant with an unexpected wild streak. The towering Ilia Isorelys Paulino as Olivia's maid Maria is an exquisite foil for all the ridiculous men.

Tim Leininger, Journal Inquirer: This cast is perfect. Their use of Shakespeare's language and verse is natural and fluid and rolls off their tongues like a second language.

E. Kyle Minor, New Haven Register: Everything, it seems, about the production design syncs to Shakespeare's language so effortlessly one wonders why the Bard didn't include them in his stage directions in the first place - the animated swords that could be referred to as Elizabethan electroshock devices, as merely one example. This is not to suggest that The Rep's going all Peter Jackson or George Lucas here. Again, there are no devices employed to show theatergoers just how clever the troupe is or isn't. Rather, they occur to us as surprising yet inevitable choices.

Lucy Gellman, New Haven Arts Council: This is the Shakespeare that New Haven, two-thirds of which is not white, has deserved for years. It goes beyond representation, and into the realm of possibility and best outcomes. It is belly laugh funny and full of heart, with lines that hang in the air long after the final bow is over. No wonder, than, that an opening night performance last week included multiple shouts of "Yasssss Queen!" several deep, rolling mmmms and an unplanned tambourine accompaniment from Row E.

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