THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
By William Shakespeare
Open Air Theatre, Inner Circle, Regent's Park, London NW1 4NU until June 8, 2024
A few years ago I was teaching Twelfth Night to my A Level English class (think AP English Literature). British comedian and actress Tamsin Grieg had done a production of it at the National, in which she played Malvolia. We were watching a recording of it. There is a line that I never knew quite what to do with – usually played for laughs – after Malvolia(o) has spent the latter half of the play being the grotesque butt of many of the characters' mirth.
Perhaps it is a testament to Grieg's power as an actress (having done great British comedy series like Black Books for much of her career); perhaps a testament to the power of theater, but as all the typical, Shakespearean comedic misunderstandings are revealed and unraveled, Grieg utters the line to her mistress Olivia, with whom Malvolia is in love: 'Madame you have done me wrong, notorious wrong… (and after Olivia's reaction) I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you.' Seeing it uttered so powerfully from Grieg's character brought an unanticipated pathos and a 21st century queer reading relevance that I hadn't anticipated that also suddenly made this, surely, the bard's most gender-fluid play and perhaps the one ripest for a 21st century re-interpretation rooting it in queer identity, feel very striking and very now.
If Grieg's production opened the door to this interpretation in 2017, director Owen Horsley blasts that door off its gay hinges in his richly colorful, revel-tastically camp, Baz Luhrman-esque festival of neon currently playing at the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park, using his vibrant vision to reinterpret the play for contemporary audiences. As Horsley tells us in the program, this Illyria is a 'queer cafe by the sea called Olivia (bombastically broadcast to us in big bold lettering atop the stage in rich and regal purple).' As opposed to the court of the traditional presentation of the play, the characters are 'a queer chosen family rather than real kin,' all of which is quite a radical departure but – purists beware – absolutely works!
This queer culture filter opens up all sorts of avenues to explore and Horsley follows all of these paths to their logical conclusion.
Cross-dressing? Check! Michael Matus as Toby Belch struts commandingly around the stage in full pantomime dame regalia, truly a master of mischief and mayhem and lord of misrule in the narrative, at one point even getting fellow reveler Andrew Aguecheek – played with nervy, sniveling brilliance by Matthew Spencer – to join in in the boundary-transgressing transvestism!
Music? In full swing and fully embraced, the program complete with a song list and virtuosically jazzy performances on vocals from Julie Legrand as Feste and Anna Francolini as Olivia.
And while I am spoiling nothing, Horsley manages deftly to directly reinterpret some of the relationships in the play foregrounding queer love and friendship. I frequently forget (perhaps because it's a text I have taught so much) that done well – and amidst or perhaps because of all the chaos swirling around them, Evelyn Miller and Andro Cowperthwaite do play the tempest-estranged twins at the center of it all, in the eye of this dramatic storm to absolute perfection – there are tender moments at the end that still make the hairs stand on the back of my neck and surprising tears well up in the corners of my eyes.
Was it perfect? Perhaps as is the case in our age of streaming and on-demand, you have to be patient with it. It takes a little while to really embrace the glitzy aesthetic, which makes some narrative sense given the context of Olivia's recent loss of her brother. And visually it all looks more stunning once it gets dark and the lights and sequins shine and sparkle in this gift of a theatrical venue. Legrand is more wise fool than spry, pied jester and better when singing than wielding the many layered nature of Feste's language. But by curtain call, this production had me on my feet, swept up in the warmth and the richness of the ending, despite the chill of the night.
