TWELFTH NIGHT

Directed by Janis Stevens; written by William Shakespeare

With: Dan Olmstead, Paul L. Coffey, Jacob Keefe, Anthony Arnista, Alecia White, Josh Scharback, Bill Van Horn, Kathleen L. Nation, Dennis A. Price, Jennifer Weinreich, Mark S. Cartier, Brian Rife, John Greenbaum, Frank Omar, Emily Rast, and Anya Johnson

At the Theater at Monmouth in Monmouth, Maine

Performed in repertory from July 9 to August 22, 2009

The Theater at Monmouth opens its fortieth Shakespeare season with a sparkling Twelfth Night, the best version of that play they’ve done since 1970, when Lee McClelland, John Fields, and Bill Meisle were at the height of their considerable skills.

The latest version, directed by Janis Stevens, makes splendid use of perhaps the deepest roster of good actors that Monmouth has ever had.

The “concept” is the world of the silent screen, a zone peopled with larger-than-life stars such as Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks, Mae West, and Buster Keaton. This metaphor is lightly used so as not to get in the way of what Shakespeare’s play is doing and works to suggest that Illyria is a zone of unreality that equals that of the lost Atlantis of Hollywood’s fabulous past. The films of that era were never silent, of course. They were accompanied by music-often themes with women’s names attached like “Jeannine,” “Diane,” and “Charmaine.” And Shakespeare’s shoreline in Twelfth Night echoes with music, songs sung by Feste, and, in this production, soft-shoe dances performed by Toby and Andrew. The set features an upstage proscenium arch and curtain, which are particularly effective in the gulling of Malvolio. We can accept that Toby, Andrew, and Fabian cannot be heard by Malvolio even though their voices are passing him on their way to us. The theatrical set means that we simply suspend our disbelief.

The cast is uniformly excellent. Alecia White is a confident Viola, sure of who she is even within the trap of her disguise. Jennifer Weinreich’s Olivia, an addition to the Monmouth company, is the best I’ve seen since Helena Bonham Carter in the Nunn film of 1996. She wears a puzzled smile most of time, very much enjoying this thing called love, but never quite glimpsing the irony of her situation until the end. Her awareness that she has fallen in love with the disguised Viola is beautifully developed, insisting that we share the process of what has already happened. This speech superbly sets up Viola’s parallel recognition of precisely the process that Olivia has just described. This linkage is one of the most rewarding sequences I have ever seen on stage. Dan Olmstead, playing at Valentino and Fairbanks, is a magnificent Orsino, falling in love with Viola in her male role in spite of Orsino’s macho personae. Dennis A. Price as Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Bill Van Horn as Sir Toby Belch are well spoken and remarkably agile in their song-and-dance routines, though no threat to Fred Astaire. I found that Kathleen L. Nation’s Mae West wig for Maria calls too much attention to itself, a case of concept interfering with the play itself. Mark S. Cartier’s Malvolio is wonderful, meticulously charting his progress toward a wrong conclusion. Paul L. Coffey’s Feste maintains his detachment from the denizens of this dream world, the better to permit us to grasp his critique of people who, for much of the play, are wasting their time, however deliciously. He reveals his own humanity at the end when he taunts the humiliated Malvolio. On the night I attended, his final song, “The rain it raineth every day,” was prophetic.

This production is brisk, splendidly choreographed, opulently costumed, and brilliantly acted. It is eminently worth the drive to Monmouth through lovely countryside on a late summer’s afternoon to their elegant digs, Cumston Hall.