Twelfth Night
January 11th 2006 -
Anna surprised me on Monday with the instructions to turn up in the city at the MLC Centre at 7:00pm, and to keep my eyes closed. It turned out she had booked tickets to the Sydney Festival production of Twelfth Night. And very interesting it was, too: the entire production was in Russian, with English subtitles (projected onto the walls above the stage) from the Shakespeare source.
It was an all-male production, which made the gender-bending of the story all the stranger, and caused nervous laughs from the audience in the first bit, until everyone got into the story. By the second half, the comedy was coming thick and fast. Sir Toby was especially good – a thick-set old Russian guy who was also wonderfully nimble and graceful. Partial standing ovation. Anna fell asleep for a short time in the first half, but had completely gotten into it by the second half, despite not being familiar with the play.
A very accessible production, despite the language barrier and mental gymnastics of having a woman playing a man (who was actually a man) falling in love with a man who was in love with a woman (actually a man) who in turn was in love with the original woman playing a man (actually a man).