Review: TWELFTH NIGHT at Old Globe Theatre

Those of us who love Shakespeare’s TWELFTH NIGHT enough to see it upwards of 12 times (guilty!) are ever searching for that “perfect production” (which reportedly awaits us in the afterlife) here on earth. So when major regional theaters like San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre bring it around every seven or eight years, to mangle a phrase from Viola/Cesario, it’s “southward ho!” down the 5 Freeway for this critic to see what’s brewing. Recognizing the play as both a crowd-pleaser and – arguably – Shakespeare’s most perfect comedy, the Globe tends to throw its big guns at the play. (One of the most magical productions I ever saw was Jack O’Brien’s 2001 production, with Rebecca Taichman’s 2015 production running a close second). The news that Globe Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein enticed Kathleen Marshall to return to San Diego this summer to play around with Viola, Olivia and the boys before turning her attention to SINATRA THE MUSICAL was exciting. Though known for her musical direction and choreography, the three-time Tony Award-winning director and choreographer blew the roof off with her LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST and MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at the Globe. Could she possibly misfire with TWELFTH NIGHT?

Alas, mostly yes she could. The production that opened June 10 on an uncharacteristically rainy night at the outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theater was consistently enjoyable, but never enchanting. Set in the Regency area and using a mixture of music (here a court violin, there a ukelele) to foreground the play rather than to drive it forward, Marshall’s production suffers from inconsistent casting. It also drags.

Granted, the Illyrians in this play have been known to feel their defining emotions down to their guts. If they are in mourning (Olivia), lovesick (Orsino), dissolute (Sir Toby Belch), sexually boxed-in (Viola) or puritanically ambitious (Malvolio), they tend to let it out  in a big way. The emotional mixture here feels off-kilter. Biko Eisen-Martin’s Duke Orsino is pining for unrequited love of Olivia (Madina Senghore) so much so that he gets consistently whiny both among Valentine and his court musicians and, later, to the disguised Viola (Naian Gonzalez Norvind). So love-wracked is this Orsino that one gets the distinct impression that you get the idea that, if the moment was right, the man would make a pass at anybody within five feet of him. Conveniently (and uncomfortably), that’s Cesario late in Act 3. So when listening to Feste’s rendition of “Come Away Death,” Eisen-Martin snuggles up on Cesario’s lap and s/he, not knowing what to do with this, plays it for comedy.   

As for Senghore’s Olivia, don’t be gulled for a second by that black mourning garb. Senghore is ready to get playful even before the disguised Viola shows up to woo her on behalf of Orsino. And once she falls for Cesario/Viola practically at first site, well, then it’s all smiles and friskiness over frustration or desperation (She might have borrowed some of Eisen-Martin’s longing).

On the comic side, Cornell Womack’s Sir Toby comes across as though decades of boozing have left him exhausted. He rallies somewhat to join the effort to get revenge on Malvolio (Greg Germann) and bait the pigeon-livered Cesario and Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Jason O’Connell) into a duel. But his heart doesn’t seem to be behind either effort, and Womack’s engine seems to be malevolence (particularly toward Malvolio) rather than mischief. His pairing both with O’Connell’s Sir Andrew (who is ever consulting a notepad and seems to be channeling Paul Lynde) and with Esco Jouley’s Feste is lacking in chemistry. Womack does pull off an early running gag that finds Toby retrieving his hidden stash of  liquor from every cranny of the stage.

The night of revelry between Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Feste that sets the “let’s take down Malvolio” into motion is a tepid affair. Sarah Joyce’s Maria gets a much-deserved laugh with her screamed out “My Masters, are you MAD!” And once Malvolio arrives to break up the party, the three merry men execute a slow-motion pratfall that feels like a troll for a laugh.

Long a reliable a comic actor, Germann is at his tic-ridden and schticky ease in Malvolio’s skin. There’s a lot of “er,” “um,” “hm” stammering whenever the actor gets into Malvolio’s monologs, but at least these speeches have some zest. Even before they work to get him, the members of Olivia’s court (Feste in particular) seem to be forever teasing and prodding the poor sap. Oblivious, Germann’s Malvolio lurks around corners and steals an opportunity to kiss his lady’s hand whenever possible. He’s into Olivia before he’s tricked into thinking she loves him back. Gremann’s brand of schtickery doesn’t really gibe with the rest of Marshall’s players (A common situation in this production), but by god, he’s plenty fun to watch.

As lost as our heroine Viola can often get amidst her bigger-than-life company members, Narvind holds her own. From her entrance dragging herself up out of the water after the shipwreck through the courts of Orsino and Olivia, Narvind’s Viola may be a piece in other people’s chess games, but she’s also nobody’s pawn. The actor has a solid rapport with the audience in her “can you believe this” and, oh yes, she earns that final kiss with Eisen-Martin.

Marshall’s two previous Shakespearean efforts at the Globe were both visual stunners and this one is a looker as well. The centerpiece of Lawrence E. Moten III’s all-purpose palazzo is a revolving room that can serve as a courtroom, a jail, you name it. Michael Krass’s costumes are beautiful, occasionally arresting (nice work on Malvolio’s sartorial transformation from puritan to yellow stocking-ed, cross-gartered abomination).

The Davies space is outdoors and used only during the summer. In a bit of atmospheric irony (it does not “raineth every day” in San Diego), the opening night of TWELFTH NIGHT took place under a steady misty shower that sent audience members to cover and left more than a few empty seats. Props to the cast for soldiering on. Pity they couldn’t make it a NIGHT more worth sitting through.

TWELFTH NIGHT plays through July 9 at The Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park, San Diego.

Photo of Biko Eisen-Martin and Naian González Norvind by Jim Cox.

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