Two lines of chairs on both sides of a long, narrow room greet you upon entering the chapel in the Second Presbyterian Church on 5th Street for the 8 p.m. performance of Richmond Shakespeare Theatre’s “Twelfth Night.”
At first it seems like an awkward space, for the audience and the actors all to be bathed in the same warm unchanging light, and for the halves of the audience of 25 to be facing each other.
The drafty Gothic space with amazing acoustics turns out to create a very intimate and interactive setting for Shakespearian antics to unfold.
“Twelfth Night” is one of Shakespeare’s better-known and more popular plays, and this performance makes it easy to see why.
The actors truly embody Shakespeare’s words, creating a physical vocabulary of passion and slapstick. This physicality makes the old English of Shakespeare very easy to follow for the young and old in the audience.
Six actors take on the 14 roles in the play. This sounds like it could be a recipe for confusion, but the actors do well at changing their accents and a piece of their clothing, like a turning around of a cap or adding of a large paper Elizabethan collar, to let the audience know they are someone else.
Richmond Shakespeare Theatre’s “Twelfth Night,” Thursdays and Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. until March 31 in the chapel of the Second Presbyterian Church, 5 N. 5th St.
Because of illness in the original cast before the show’s opening, the company’s artistic director Grant Mudge, and fight choreographer David White play Thomas E. Nowlin’s roles of Duke Orsino, Sir Andrew and Malvolio.
White perfectly plays the dim-witted harmless Sir Andew and the mean-spirited, love-struck Malvolio. His extremely flexible, tall, thin frame and high energy bring the space to life.
Frank Creasy’s Sir Toby is a hilarious drunk, who takes pleasure in conjuring up schemes, like the tricking of Malvolio, with his beloved Maria. Liz Blake plays Viola/Cesario with sweetness and clarity. Her Sebastian is obviously much more rough and rowdy than Viola/Cesario.
Suzanne Ankrum’s Olivia is passionate, melancholy and proper. She also plays her own maid Maria, who is playful and childishly fiendish. Mudge’s Duke Orsino is cocky, attractive and self-important. He cannot believe that Olivia does not return his love.
The play is a raucous and bawdy tale of mistaken identities and misplaced affection. Duke Orsino and Sir Andrew are in love with the beautiful Countess Olivia, who falls in love with Orsino’s page boy Cesario (Viola disguised as a man after being shipwrecked off the coast of the town and told it is not safe for a woman to travel alone).
Cesario/Viola falls in love with Orsino, Olivia’s maid Maria tricks Malvolio into thinking Olivia is in love with him and Olivia’s uncle Sir Toby Belch and Maria are happily in love with each other.
Viola thinks her twin brother Sebastian drowned in the shipwreck, and Sebastian thinks the same of her. Olivia mistakes Sebastian for Cesario/Viola, only Sebastian is much more pleased with her advances. The truth is eventually revealed to all, and a “happily ever after” is in store.
Theatre VCU undergraduate and graduate alumnus and musical, comedic and theatrical genius Andrew Hamm stole the show. He plays Feste, Olivia’s entertainer-fool.
He weaves music throughout the show to keep the audience engaged. Hamm uses modern songs with subject-appropriate topics, just as a movie soundtrack does.
He sings The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” ’80s anthem “I Wear My Sunglasses at Night” by Corey Hart, the “Mission Impossible” theme tune and Joe Jackson’s “Is She Really Going Out With Him” while playing tiny guitar, mandolin, kazoo and hand drum.
The small audience enjoys Hamm’s diversions. The actors involve the audience by blaming them when they get in trouble, playing with their clothing, pointing at them and throwing popcorn and squirting water at them.
The dual roles don’t pose a problem until the end when all of the characters should appear together. For this, the company brings in two dressed-up mannequins on wheels. It’s better than if they were to just swivel back and forth talking to themselves.
The mannequin gag is also funny because the actors realize it is. It works in this context, because it’s a comedy and because up until now the actors have done well at playing different roles – memorizing all the lines of two or three characters in a Shakespeare play is in and of itself wholly impressive.