Shakespeare Through the Looking Glass – Twelfth Night – Liverpool Everyman Theatre – 08/03/2014

Yesterday saw the first public performance in Liverpool’s completely rebuilt Everyman Theatre. Artistic Director Gemma Bodinetz thought long and hard before settling on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night as her opening show. She wanted something that was an ensemble piece to highlight the democratic ethos of the theatre, not something that would put one actor’s face on the poster. She also wanted something with poetry and comedy, something that reflected on loss and the joy of reunion and, above all, “...a play that celebrates love, a renegade spirit and a naughtiness”.

She has found all this and more in Twelfth Night and has assembled a cast and creative team who have brought her vision joyously to life in this wonderfully exuberant production.



Did you ever see the picture of we three?
Matthew Kelly, Paul Duckworth and Adam Keast
Photo © Stephen Vaughan

 Laura Hopkins’ design is made to appear as though it grows organically out of the very brickwork of the theatre. Audiences are greeted at the beginning by an almost empty stage dominated by a large, ornately framed mirror to the rear wall reflecting their own image, and its twin, smashed into fragments and scattered about the stage floor. These shards of glass offer opportunities for characters to reflect on their appearance, their identity and their motives.

It is very hard to know where to begin with the cast, as it is just what Gemma wanted – a great ensemble piece with strong individual parts. Matthew Kelly and Nicholas Woodeson worked together in the Everyman company of 1974 and seem a logical place to begin. Woodeson is everything you need in a Malvolio, lugubrious, poker-faced and faintly ridiculous as the pompous steward but turning into an excited little boy when he falls for Maria’s cruel joke. His Cheshire-Cat grin is something to behold, as is his unusual entrance in act 4.

Could Matthew Kelly have played any other role than this occasionally flatulent Sir Toby Belch? (It’s the pickled herring, you know.) He blends the comic element of the part with genuine pathos and imbues the part with tremendous energy. It’s through performances like this that the character is so memorable.

Adam Keast is a spot of casting genius as Sir Andrew Agucheek. His last appearance in Liverpool saw him suspended from a wire dressed as a giant shrimp in Aladdin (if you weren’t there don’t even ask!) Agucheek offers plenty of opportunity for some of the most eccentric excesses of comedy and Keast’s skill is in making us care about Sir Andrew despite his behaviour. Almost upholstered rather than dressed, he struts about with a ludicrous hairstyle and somehow captures our hearts.

And now to our shipwrecked twins: Luke Jerdy is a splendid Sebastian, wide eyed and full of confusion as the plot ravels and unravels around him. He is full of charm and also finds the sharp wit in the writing. Jodie McNee as his twin sister Viola is another crack-shot bit of casting. She is a perfect balance of determination and vulnerability and her masculine bearing throughout her masquerade as Cesario is nothing short of perfection.



Luke Jerdy and Jodie McNee
Photo © Stephen Vaughan

We strike theatrical gold with our Feste, Paul Duckworth, whose fearless performance really highlights the central importance of the part. His transformation into the fool is arresting, and he finds a wonderful balance between the many faces of the character. Often dark and almost sinister and occasionally leaning toward near burlesque, this is a splendid creation.

Alan Stocks playing Fabian appears almost part of the furniture at first, being onstage for a long stretch with no lines. When he does make his entrance he has the great stage presence that we expect from him and his cat and mouse scenes hiding in the shrubbery with Keast and Kelly, waiting for the woodcock to find the gin, are timed to perfection.

Maria is played by Pauline Daniels and her vocal characterisations almost nod in the direction of Hilda Baker at times. She has all the blustering blowsy personality to stand up to the difficult household that she finds herself trying to keep order in, and when she joins in with the revelry and gets caught she becomes a naughty schoolgirl.

Natalie Dew plays the bereaved and occasionally perplexed Olivia, who on finally breaking her self-imposed vow of chastity manages to fall for a wrong-un. Her turns between girlish charm and astonished confusion require some great comic timing and she pulls it off beautifully. Antonio falls to David Rubin. As the sea captain friend and saviour of Sebastian, he has tremendous stature and poise.

Neil Caple as Curio and Robin Morrisey as Valentine, with relatively little text, provide a perfect foil to the love-sick Duke Orsino.

So what of our noble Duke? He has the opening line and here he appears to be pondering its meaning as he delivers it. Adam Levy combines the dignity of the Duke with a real feeling of despair and disenchantment Decked in a natty linen suit he presides over Illyria with a melancholy charm and we have high hopes that he will find his match in the end.

I’ve already described the opening setting in Laura Hopkins’ design, but there’s more than meets the eye. In an opportunity to display some of the theatre’s new technical abilities there are some almost seamless and magical scene changes, and the set manages to reveal a few surprises from the beginning right to the very end. It’s easy to overlook the lighting when it is so neatly married with the action, and Paul Keogh’s lighting script uses the Everyman’s new equipment to blend the scenes together atmospherically.

Music is an important part of Shakespeare, and has a special part to play in Twelfth Night. A regular collaborator with Gemma Bodinetz, Composer Peter Coyte does not give us excess of it. The recorded segments of his score seep out of the pores of the production, whilst his live music performed by the actors themselves is as mysterious a mixture of styles as the fabled location of Illirya.

Feste accompanies himself with a guitar in a folk-like rendition of his ballads. It is he who opens the final lines of verse that end the play, and it seems only natural for the cast to add their voices to the refrain as they reassure us that they will – as we hope the Everyman will do for many decades to come – strive to please us every day.

If...

Twelfth Night plays at the Liverpool Everyman until 5th April 2014. Details are available from the theatre website: www.everymanplayhouse.com or the box office: 0151 709 4776