By Bart Greenberg ****Twelfth Night is one of William Shakespeare’s most popular comedies. It’s a beautifully constructed farce that spins on male/female twins who look alike when the girl is in male drag. It’s also a study of how love can induce melancholia and even madness when passion becomes misdirected. Unfortunately, the current production of the Frog and Peach Theatre Co. misses both these points. Being performed in the comfortable Black Box Theater at the Sheen Center in lower Manhattan, and running through March 17, this version makes questionable choices from casting to direction to design. A few of the cast members manage to rise above the confusion and give spot on performances, but sadly not enough to raise the entertainment to a successful level.
The first problem is in the casting. Alyssa Diamond is a charming actress, but as Viola (one half of the twins) dressed in male drag, as she is for 90% of the evening, her petite frame and diminutive height causes her to appear like a barely pubescent boy, making both Olivia and Orsino’s romantic/sexual interests in her/him rather creepy. And then, in the second half of the play, when everyone on stage (including the twins themselves) is supposed to be unable to differentiate between Viola and her brother Sebastian, new issues arrive. Kyle Primack’s beloved sibling is several inches taller, sports a headful of curly hair as opposed to Diamond’s long straight hair, and is decidedly more muscular. Even bowing to stage conventions, this stretches the audiences’ suspension of disbelief to a breaking point. Then, there is the issue of melancholia that both Duke Orsino and Countess Olivia are suffering from at the start of the play; she in mourning for the death of her father and brother, he in frustration of his desire for her. Jonathan Reed Wexler and Karoline Patrick are decidedly attractive people and deal well with the Shakespearean language, but from the beginning he seems a laid back, friendly stud and she a somewhat giggly girl having a lark in her assumed grief. With such lightly held feelings, there is little room for their evolution as people finding the liberation of falling in love.
As to the comic roles in the production, Steve Mazzoccone seems too mundane as the clown, Feste. Kevin Hauver, as the drunken Sir Toby Belch, doesn’t find the delighted mischief of this Falstaff-lite, and Jamar Brathwaite, as the eternal dupe Sir Andrew Aguecheek, strangely dressed by costumer Asa Benally as a cousin of Steve Urkel, lacked a consistent approach. (The theme tying all of the costumes together is an abundance of scarves tied to various limbs, with a vaguely Iberian Peninsula suggestion to the look.) Only Amy Frances Quint as the vengeful Maria finds both rich comedy and believable passion in her role. Richard James Porter strikes the right notes as the pompous and over-wheaning Malvolio. John I. Payne brings a manly authority to the less-developed role of Antonio, who has a somewhat inexplicable devotion to Sebastian.
Overall, the direction of Lynnea Benson seems much too busy. Why is an important establishing scene upstaged by two sailors doing pratfalls? Why is there an additional romance among the servants added in pantomime (convincingly and charmingly played by Dani Franco and Blake Kelton Prentiss) in a play overstuffed with characters and subplots? This Twelfth Night has sporadic charm and humor, but it is an unfortunately uneven holiday.
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