Twelfth Night

After a dark pandemic year, outdoor Shakespeare returned to the boreal forest with an upbeat Twelfth Night by Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre (FST). Producing Artistic Director Tom Robenolt cut the script to emphasize its festive mood and downplay its loose ends. Most notably, at least for me, Duke Orsino did not speak the line in which he offers an olive branch to Malvolio at the play’s end: “Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace” (5.1.373). This omission erased any hint that Malvolio either deserved an apology or might somehow be included in what Orsino calls the play’s “most happy wreck” (5.1.262).

The Folio text of Twelfth Night gestures only fitfully at comic resolution. Jack shall have Jill, but some things go ill, even in Illyria. The text sidelines Antonio, for example. Sir Toby forcefully rejects Sir Andrew, and Malvolio exits with a vow of revenge. These things happened in this summer’s Alaskan production, too, but they didn’t seem to affect its celebra-tory tone. Where other directors might have brought a silent Malvolio back onto the stage—either to participate in the happy ending or to stand conspicuously outside it—Robenolt simply let him go. As played by Bruce Rogers, the steward threw off his oppressive propriety and reacted with explosive joy when he read the fake letter, and his dungeon scenes were touching, as he begged for ink, paper, and light. But the production had sealed his fate. Olivia (Flyn Ludington) granted that Malvolio had “been most notoriously abused,” but to my ear, she sounded more amused than angry about it (5.1.372). Ludington reserved most of her passion and her lyrical delivery for the twins, initially for a tall and appealingly androgynous Viola/Cesario, and then—with the passion kicked up a notch—for Sebastian, who more than matched her enthusiasm.

Like Malvolio, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew seemed to disappear from the thoughts of the other characters as soon as they limped off the stage: out of sight, out of mind. Nor was there any mention of Sir Toby’s marrying

Sir Toby Belch (Matt Reckard), Feste (Nick Nappo), Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Bruce Hanson), and Malvolio (Bruce Rogers) in Twelfth Night, dir. Tom Robenolt. Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre, 2021. Photo by Turner Nolan, courtesy of Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre.

Maria. Without such hints of unseen reconciliation, the sense of harmony at the end depended on the four lovers. For me, that sense came mainly from Viola and Sebastian—first in Olivia’s reaction to seeing the two together for the first time—“Most wonderful!” (5.1.221)—and then from the slow-motion reunion of the twins, who stepped tentatively toward each other across the gravel apron in front of the stage.

The Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre’s playing space on the University of Alaska Fairbanks’s forested campus is one of those spots that evokes the wood outside of Athens where Peter Quince’s company rehearsed. In keeping with that site, the design of this production was what I’ve come to think of as Neo-Renaissance Primitive, taking advantage of the location to pare down technical effects—no lighting needed under the Midnight Sun—and concentrate on the story. Kit Mayer’s wooden set looked a bit like drawings of early English stages, but was probably closer in function to the wagons used in earlier pageant cycles. Props were few, and the instrumental music was provided by Valentine (Kellie Bernstein) and her guitar. The costumes, designed by Theresa Reed, provided the only substantial visual effects in the performance. These particular costumes evoked the Restoration rather than Shakespeare’s era. The design choices suggested to me that, in this production, the continuity of what Olivia calls the “merry world” (3.1.96)—a nostalgic view of Old England—was more important than the historical threat some critics have seen in the character of Malvolio. The Puritan Revolution would only be temporary.

As I watched the gulling of Malvolio and his turn in the dungeon, I found myself thinking that maybe a play whose big comic scene features three abusive alcoholics has no intention of conferring complete harmony on its fictional world. Indeed, the FST production played the drunken characters for laughs, and I even found myself rooting for them against Malvolio. Placed on the ground on either side of the stage, the conspirators popped up and down inside moveable box-trees, close to the audience, yet more or less unnoticed by the steward. This arrangement also gave Rogers the run of the set, as he wound himself up and eventually leaped off the front of the stage, shouting, “My lady loves me!” Matt Reckhard and Nick Nappo, as Sir Toby and Feste, claimed the ground at house left, with the taller Bruce Hanson as Sir Andrew at house right, where he could scuttle forward inside his tree to peer over Malvolio’s shoulder as he read the letter. The pranksters were well-matched, with the Fool, having incorporated the part of Fabian, behaving more like a third drinking buddy than a chorus. Hanson’s Sir Andrew stood out, not only for his height—with a taller box-tree to match—but also for his lively miming, as when he impersonated a gnarled fourth tree after being caught outside his box by Malvolio.

According to Jean Anouilh, tragedy is relaxing, because we know there is no more hope (22). Comedy, by contrast, creates tension precisely because it does offer hope. But hope for whom? As a reader of Twelfth Night, I feel tension in the treatment of Malvolio, and also in what happens to Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, Maria, and Antonio, who hang ambiguously on the edges of the happy ending. By eliminating gestures such as Orsino’s peace offering to Malvolio or the reported marriage of Toby and Maria, this production seemed to say that the comic resolution applied only to the four lovers. Nor were the excluded characters allowed to threaten the happy closing mood. They were played as disruptive influences to be laughed at and discarded. After that, the party could begin.

Glossing over the fates of these marginal figures seemed to work well for FST’s plague-year audience—most of whom wore masks, even in the woods. It’s easy to believe that this emphasis worked for Shakespeare’s audiences, too. In this spirit, I could pretty much ignore the abrupt departures of Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and the droll Maria, colorful as all three were. But Malvolio, barefoot and unlaced in his final confrontation with Olivia, and Antonio, hands bound throughout the last long scene, stayed on my mind. Appropriately for a time of plague, I thought, these loose ends and the wistful final song provided a touch of melancholy at the end of this generally cheerful interpretation.