PRESENT MIRTH HATH PRESENT LAUGHTER. AND MELANCHOLY. AND FALSE NOSES
In a play as familiar as this it is small touches that spring fresh life. Like the moment when the fool Feste defines drunkards: “one draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him.” Sir Toby, a roaring Joplin Sibtain in Prasanna Puwanarajah’s new production, is very much a dangerous drunk, no mere belching buffoon. Olivia, suddenly anxious, orders the jester to go after him as he reels off, and is reassured that he is not yet at the drowned stage. In that tiny moment of glances between servant and mistress we are reminded that she is a woman in authority over an often chaotic household , where servants collude with invading kinsmen and her stiff steward merely disapproves. Madam, beleaguered, is concerned for her kinsman. Plenty such small pleasures crop up, comic or touching: as when in the final scene Orsino starts to declare his love and momentarily picks the wrong twin, setting Sebastian scuttling back to his heterosexual ladylove with real pre-gay-pride horror. In another endearing domestic touch Olivia’s wedding celebrant is a sweet smiley lady-vicar with white collar and teacup, clearly game but baffled. Emily Benjamin does it beautifully.
Mining the text for refreshing nuance and detail is part of the RSC’s gift, and keeps you going even through early qualms. Which I suffered by initially really disliking James Cotterill’s stark-ish monochrome set, based on Edward Gorey’s spooky, uneasy surrealism. A vast white glaring screen starts by blanking out the shipwreck survivors coughing and struggling at the start, and hangs about too long before turning into a sort of roof. And there’s a constant presence of a chap (it turns out to be Fabian, Olivia’s manservant) spending a lot of time up a ladder at the side silently slapping on black paint. It felt for a short while as if the set was dominating, rather than serving, the play. But fair enough, I recanted once some gigantic organ-pipes descended to hide the plotters watching Malvolio in the box-tree scene. They even managed to knock out a quarter-chime with their heads as they bickered. Even more reconciled when, O glory of glories, Samuel West’s deceived Malvolio made a grand entrance at the top of the monstrous pipes, wearing a Santa hat, saying ‘ho ho ho” , and suddenly sliding a fireman’s pole some thirty feet to the stage to reveal that he is trouserless , in a brass-buttoned tailcoat jacket with bare legs cross-gartered over yellow knee-socks. I hope this national treasure of theatre is in some way padded at the crotch for that experience, but it certainly raised a wild opening night cheer.
The greytoned set and great organ chords which keep popping up are all part of Puwanarajah’s perception of the layers of melancholy within Shakespeare’s Christmas-season comedy. Olivia is mourning a brother, Viola thinks hers is lost, Orsino’s love is hopeless, so is Viola”s until the end; Malvolio knows he is disliked, Sir Toby’s drink problem is getting worse and wilder. Hey ho, the wind and the rain. Happy endings come, but you can never bet on them.
None of the melancholy, however, damages the lyricism or the comedy. Gwyneth Keyworth is one of 11 RSC debuts in this cast, a superb Viola: scared, resolute and dishevelled at first, then a neat little Cesario speaking her mind – shouting, indeed, at Orsino’s contempt of women’s ability to love. She is marvellously, credibly comic in her dismayed scenes with Olivia. Who is Freema Agyeman, another newcomer to Stratford and a good find:her icy dignity and authority melting into astonished girlish adoration – “even so quickly may one catch the plague!”made me long to see her Cleopatra one day.
No cavils in other casting (though an eccentricity in Aguecheek: Demetri Goritsas who for some reason in dress and voice seems to have come from New York 1945). Danielle Henry’s Maria is manically lively in her hoaxing defiance; West’s brief early appearances as Malvolio offer enough clarity as to why his woeful deficit of humour has been infuriating the revellers. And Michael Grady-Hall’s Feste is a pleasure all through, whether singing with thoughtful tunefulness Matt Maltese’s new tunes to the famous lyrics, looking on drily at the Cesario situation, or descending from the roof crooning into a microphone. He’s an adept physical comedian and an effortlessly likeable presence. He puts in the extra time in the 25-minute interval by larking around with foam nose-balls , throwing them around the front rows with sharp mimetic humour. They’re bright yellow, those noses, the play’s colour-theme sparking through the Goreysque sobriety just as jokes break through life. In one of the magnificently spirited brawls, chases and fights near the end, when Feste is hit and whirls round dazed, his yellow nose magically changes colour. See? It’s the small touches, alongside the grandeur of emotion, that keep us coming.
BOXOFFICE. Rsc.org.uk. To 18 jan
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