Review: Globe’s “˜Twelfth Night’ proves “˜most wondrous!’

In the Scottish play, a flabbergasted Macduff, not knowing what
to make of the two sides he’s just witnessed of the exiled
Malcolm, famously utters, “Such welcome and unwelcome things
at once / ‘Tis hard to reconcile.”

Macduff’s lines neatly sum up the Shakespeare’s
Globe production of “Twelfth Night” now playing to
sold-out houses at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse. Such indeed is the
difficulty one faces in finally trying to reconcile the disparate
responses elicited by this dark and cautious, stark yet achingly
beautiful production.

At the risk of being reductive, it might be said that the
Globe’s “Twelfth Night” is a play of
diametrically opposite halves. The first hour seemed tentative:
Were the players taming it down in trying to play to an American
audience? Or were they feeling their way through a new, unfamiliar
space? This was forgivably, after all, opening night.

Certainly, the early pacing was static to a fault, alleviated in
too-short bursts of energy by the trio of Maria (Peter Shorey),
Olivia (Mark Rylance) and late on, Malvolio (Timothy Walker), in
the famous letter scene. An agonizing hour passes before the fourth
wall is finally truly broken (by Walker, in the aforementioned
scene). It’s surprising to find a production aiming at period
authenticity so decidedly coy about engaging its audience head
on.

The second half of the play begins with the cast marching out to
a funeral drumbeat ““ a reminder of the play’s inherent
darkness (the specter of death and unrequited love permeating the
first half of the play is mercifully contained in this latter half
““ metaphorically held at bay within the dark box that comes
to be Malvolio’s prison).

Happily (and ironically), the play leaves its past behind at
intermission. Helping to keep the stage energized are two
characters who now have significantly more stage time, namely
Patrick Brennan’s robust Antonio, and Rhys Meredith’s
impressive Sebastian, twin brother and foil to Michael
Brown’s pitch-hampered Viola.

Perhaps an older hand than Brown at playing cross-gender roles,
Rylance certainly possesses the chops necessary for his compelling,
if controversial, rendering of Olivia. Rylance’s Olivia, a
strange, wondrous character, not unlike a cross between Jack
Skellington and Sally from “The Nightmare Before
Christmas,” successfully embodies the emotional arc of the
play. This Olivia, in conspicuous white face (a nod to the
“Virgin” Queen Elizabeth, perhaps?), is certainly no
Helena Bonham Carter ““ there’s hardly any serious
attempt here at verisimilitude.

That said, having watched Rylance, one would be hard-pressed to
find a funnier, more endearing, Olivia. At once alien and yet more
warmly human than all the other characters, Rylance’s
performance, down to every nuanced line and comic gesture, was
certainly worthy of a long night’s rapturous standing
ovation. Olivia says it best at the play’s penultimate
moment, simply: “Most wondrous!”

““ Alex Wen