The combination of a previously can’t-miss-whatever-they-do Fiasco Theater troupe with the 50th Anniversary year of the Classic Stage Company was a key reason for my purchasing a subscription this year. Two Shakespeare classics were on stage this fall, As You Like It and now Twelfth Night. Neither was good.
Twelfth Night is a gender bending comedy believed to have been written for a twelfth night’s entertainment to close the Christmas season. A comedy, the play also supports musical interludes which would have been expected at that time. I have seen other versions of this play, on Broadway with Mark Rylance in 2014 and in a two part off-off Broadway mash up by Bedlam. Familiarity with the play helped me understand what was going here but it did not relieve me from my boredom. A guy two seats down leaned forward towards the end of Act II, elbows on knees, face in hands, seemingly exasperated. An elderly lady left early and looked so fragile that a cast member helped walk her to the exit. It wasn’t just me.
The balance between comedy and drama here was off. The comedic scenes were, while better, a little too improv for my tastes. You could see and hear the cast sitting in the background laughing harder than the audience. There are some nice singing voices in the mix but the songs had the effect of slowing the play down. Clowning, musicality and cleverness got in the way of storytelling, not normally something I’d expect from this group. Their outstanding take on Cymbeline put Fiasco on the map in 2011. This one’s not the choice to introduce yourself to this company.
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