Dean Figone as Sir Toby Belch and Leigh Hayes as Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Long Beach Playhouse’s Twelfth Night.
Culture Writer
Twelfth Night, playing through Oct. 4 at the Long Beach Playhouse Studio Theatre, includes the standard fare of Shakespearean comedies: men in tights, mistaken identities, unrequited love and cross-dressing. In this tale, twins Viola (Paige Sherman) and Sebastian (Joseph Torres) survive a shipwreck, though each believes the other has died. In short order, Viola chops off her hair, adopts the attire of her brother, changes her name to Cesario and wins the position of trusted page in Duke Orsino’s (Mikel Parraga) court.
In Shakespeare’s hand, Valentine (Rebecca Morales) and Curio (Amara Phelps) were gentlemen. Under Gregory Cohen’s direction, however, they are lovely ladies, one brunette, one blonde, who fawn over their lord. These starry-eyed gals are like bookends, one glued to Orsino’s left shoulder, chest, and arm, the other to his right. He scarcely recognizes their presence— a clever echoing of Orsino’s continual fussing over the countess Olivia (Ani Marderosian), which she in turn takes great pains to ignore.
Orsino sends Viola-now-Cesario to Olivia in hopes that the young “boy” will persuade her to accept Orsino’s advances. Instead, Olivia falls for Cesario, though “he” does his best to ward her off. This is the first of many same-sex flirtations, this one Shakespeare’s intent, the others accentuated by director Cohen.
In the meantime, Olivia’s Faustian uncle, Sir Toby Belch (Dean Figone), lives up to his name, drinking with wild abandon and blaming his farts on pickled herring. He carouses with his sidekicks Feste (Alex Shewchuk), the wise jester, and the decidedly over-the-top Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Leigh Hayes). Andrew enters, for example, not from stage left or right but from the back of the theatre, stumbling over audience members in the back rows, stopping to compliment someone’s shoes, then jumping like a 2-year-old into Toby’s arms.
Andrew’s effeminate ways and awkward comments are apt foils to Toby’s solid-as-a-mountain masculinity and Feste’s razor-sharp insights. In one hilarious scene, Andrew and Cesario-mistaken-for-Sebastian are thrust into a duel neither of them wants or is prepared to wage. They are hobbled about the stage like life-sized puppets, Toby propping up one, while Feste orchestrates the movements of the other.
Olivia’s manservant, Malvolio (John Byrd), is superb in his soliloquy of above-his-status and below-his-beltline fantasizing. He is duped into believing he is held in high affection by Olivia when in fact she despises the outrageous attire he believes she had asked him to don. Much pleased with his male appendage, Malvolio masturbates nearly as much in the conventional sense as he does through his megalomaniacal assessment of himself. After several episodes of self-love, his best friend swells to the size of a hefty zucchini and remains so for the duration of the play. Fear not: though Malvolio moans in ecstasy, he wears a tunic that permits a modicum of decency, and the resulting zucchini is clothed in bright yellow tights. It flops about as he cavorts across the stage, and at one point someone bops it as one would tap a helium-filled balloon. Poor Malvolio.
Another character to watch is Maria, Olivia’s wench of a handmaid, played by Loren McJannett. She is the big-busted gal you could see slinging mugs of ale in a medieval pub, kicking up her heels with any man in the house, and grabbing at least one to take to bed. She is perfectly cast, using her flirty gestures and flashing eyes to enlist three drunks to take part in a plot-altering prank.
Last but not least, a bit more needs to be said of director Gregory Cohen, who, dare one say, improves upon Shakespeare, chiefly by adding more twists and bawdiness to an already twist-filled, bawdy play. For example, Antonio (Ramon Ochoa), who saved Sebastian from drowning, delivers his lines as a man interested in bedding Sebastian rather than an underling expressing his devotion to his superior. This makes for ducks and dodges that were not necessarily there in the 1400s. Also, near the close, when Valentine and Curio, played in this production by women, are commanded to attend to Malvolio, the meaning is clearly sexual, whereas had they been played by stoic male servants, the audience’s understanding would have been mere food and drink.
Perhaps the most delightful additions are recorder player Amanda Hillig and guitarist Steven Shane, who provide a musical score for Orsino’s lovesickness. No one acknowledges their presence, they don’t speak, and no one says anything to them, so they function in a netherworld between the real and the ephemeral. Especially precious is when Orsino is just about to wax on about Olivia then abruptly stops. The musicians immediately refrain from accompanying his proclamations and give the audience a teeny frown.
Twelfth Night continues at the Long Beach Playhouse Studio Theatre through Oct. 4. Admission is $24 for general admission, $21 for seniors and $14 for students with valid ID. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm Sundays at 2pm. The Long Beach Playhouse is located at 5021 E. Anaheim St. Call (562) 494-1014 to reach the box office. Tickets are also available online at lbplayhouse.org .
