“Twelfth Night” at Antaeus

Antaeus Theatre Company has an excellent and longstanding reputation for being expert with classical theater work, from Ibsen to Pinter, with a particular affinity for Shakespeare. As best as I can gather, they’ve done eight other plays by the Bard, including such highlights as Dakin Matthews and Harry Groener dual cast in revelatory portrayals as King Lear or Ann Noble’s magnificent performance last year in The Winter’s Tale. Their latest production, Twelfth Night, features at least one great comedic turn and a terrific ensemble but is somewhat uneven in its overall quality.

Viola (Liza Seneca) and her twin brother Sebastian (Isaac Ybarra) are shipwrecked and separated off the coast of Illyria. She thinks her brother has drowned. To make her own way, she disguises herself as a man called Cesario and takes work as an assistant to Duke Orsino (David DeSantos). Orsino is in hopeless love with the grieving Olivia (Veralyn Jones), but she spurns all his advances. In desperation he sends “Cesario” to plead his case. Meanwhile, Olivia’s drunken uncle, Sir Toby Belch (Rob Nagle) conspires with Olivia’s servant Maria (Kitty Swink) and the fool Feste (John Allee) to convince the arrogant Malvolio (Joel Swetow) that Olivia is enamored of him.

Seneca does great work throughout and manages to convey her character’s feelings concerning love in a serious and convincing way. Ybarra looks nothing like Seneca, and there’s an amusing bit that takes advantage of this late in the play. Nevertheless Ybarra is very effective in displaying Sebastian’s grief for the supposedly dead Viola, and Luis Kelly-Duarte is similarly good as Antonio, who has strong feelings for Sebastian. DeSantos excels as the lovestruck but oblivious Orsino, and Jones has fun with her role as the initially forbidding but quickly smitten Olivia.

Swetow relishes his role as Malvolio and delivers a rich comedic performance, grandly rolling his “r’s” and preening in the mirror, humorously differentiating between the character’s real voice and his public one. Allee is sharply amusing as Feste, and his performances of the songs in the show are lovely, one of the few times I’ve ever enjoyed the songs in a Shakespearian production. Swink is good as Maria but somehow even better as the laconic servant Fabian, and Alberto Isaac is an amiable presence as the much-derided Andrew Aguecheek. Nagle, however, steals the show as Toby, with a rambunctious, hilarious blast of a performance. I’ve often seen Nagle in more dramatic roles, but he is commandingly comic here, getting strong laughs from almost every line – even things as seemingly minor as an astonished “What?!” He brings such energy and comedic chops to the show that it’s a delight whenever Toby staggers drunkenly onstage.

Director Armin Shimerman gets strong work from his actors, but some of his directorial choices don’t seem entirely successful. He mentions in the program that he “purposefully cast the roles older than they are normally played,” which is fine, but this choice doesn’t seem to pay any noticeable dividends in the finished product. The scene in which Malvolio is fooled into thinking Olivia loves him and monologues about it are well performed but seem paced slowly and become a bit too much of an otherwise good thing. And the handling of the conclusion seems strangely abrupt and emotionally ambivalent, which may be a deliberate choice but felt confusing.

Twelfth Night is overall a solid production and features some very impressive performances, but a few choices don’t quite work and keep it from being as effective a production as it might be. 

Twelfth Night is presented by Antaeus Theatre Company at the Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center and plays through March 17. Tickets are available