Twelfth Night

When I normally leave a theater performance, I have an idea of how to write about the production. I'm particularly inspired by a particular actor, perhaps, or by the use of sound or pace or movement. However, when I left Propeller's production of Twelfth Night at the Guthrie, I was at a loss.  The kind of loss that happens after one has been blindsided by wonder.

Propeller is an all-male Shakespeare company based in the U.K.that tours the world offering stagings at once traditional and innovative.  They're traditional in the sense that an all-male troupe was the social convention of Shakespeare's time. I couldn't help but think, at several moments throughout the performance, that this is exactly what Shakespeare had in mind. This gift and brilliance is why the play was written. But there is nothing stuffy or staid about this staging, nothing to recall the dusty, awkward performances that so often cause theater-goers to ready their yawning muscles as they settle into Shakespeare. Propeller enlivens the Bard in an authentic, deeply-felt way that translates into a performance equal parts hilarious and poignant.

The use of song and movement is perfect, with actors singing, dancing, and inching and crawling across the stage in tune with the tone of each scene.  There are bawdy, raucous sounds to accompany drunkenness and revelry, and haunting melodies and wave-like movements to match the ache of lovers' longing. The play of light, also, hones the audience's focus on the key individuals in each scene, while much of the company remains on stage. Their presence, often masked and in the shadows, seems to melt into the scenery, providing moans, songs, instrumental bells and whistles, as a sort of moving set piece. They're a sort of Chorus element, providing a pulse for the body of the play.

I cannot highlight one actor as particularly soaring.  The play feels like one unified, electrifying machine, and not an assemblage of moving parts. The expert pace, the swiftness of every dialogue, the coy winks of teasing "ladies" and their lovers, the music of both joy and melancholy, all are necessary and all are provided with seemingly effortless style.

Propeller is staging Twelfth Night in repertory with Taming of the Shrew. I cannot encourage attendance enough!

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