review

Bare Theatre Review
By Robert W. McDowell, Triangle Theatre Reviews
 
“Twelfth Night” is great, good fun for the whole family

With its romantic subplots complicated by mistaken identities and enlivened by elaborate practical jokes, TWELFTH NIGHT -- which Raleigh, NC-based Bare Theatre performed on Sept. 21 and 22 at the Holly Springs Cultural Arts Center in Holly Springs and will perform on Sept. 27-30 at Common Ground Theatre in Durham -- is one of English dramatist William Shakespeare’s most popular romantic comedies. Staged properly -- as it was at the Holly Springs Cultural Arts Center by Bare Theatre managing director Heather J. Hackford -- TWELFTH NIGHT is great, good fun for the whole family.

The play starts when two plucky twins, Carmen-maria Mandley as Viola and Seth Blum as Sebastian, are shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria, located on the western part of today’ Balkan Peninsula, where the gruff but benevolent Duke of Illyria named Orsino (Khoa Pham) publicly pines away for the fair Olivia (Rebecca Blum), who is completely indifferent to his suit while she mourns the recent deaths of, first, her father and, then, her brother. Separated by the fierce storm, Viola and Sebastian each think the other drowned and their simultaneous appearance in different parts of Illyria creates confusion in the locals.

Carmen-maria Mandley is charming as Viola, who disguises herself as a man named Cesario, so that she can serve Duke Orsino at his court; and Seth Blum, who uncharacteristically struggled with his lines during last Saturday’s matinee performance, quickly recovered his comic footing and acquitted himself well as Sebastian.

Khoa Pham regally struts and frets and fumes over Olivia’s peremptory rejection of his royal romantic overtures, and Rebecca Blum once again proves her mettle as one of the Triangle’s finest comediennes with her pixilated performance as Olivia.

Sarah Schmitt -- in male drag -- is game but not quite as compelling as Olivia’s pompous steward Malvolio, who dares to dream that his melancholy mistress has eyes only for him; and Tara Pozo’s outrageous antics as Feste the Clown sometimes grow tiresome. With his mincing stiff-shouldered walk, Richard Butner is a hoot as Curio; and likewise Matt Schedler as Olivia’s obstreperous uncle Sir Toby Belch, Jeff Buckner as hopelessly foppish rich fool Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Kacey Reynolds as Olivia’s conniving maidservant Maria, and Loren Armitage as their cheerful co-conspirator Fabian delight the audience as they play a wonderfully wicked practical joke on Malvolio.

Director Heather Hackford gets passionate, if not always polished, performances from her mostly young and uniformly energetic cast. Costume designer Jeremy David Clos does a magnificent job of recreating complicated Renaissance fashions in eye-catching detail; and lighting designer Andy Parks, sound designer and composer G. Todd Buker (a.k.a. Proxy), and clown trainer Kat Randle all do yeoman’s work in imbuing this shoestring presentation with a wealth of production values.

SECOND OPINION: Sept. 27th Raleigh, NC NEWS & OBSERVER review by Roy C. Dicks: http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/717517.html.

Bare Theatre presents TWELFTH NIGHT Thursday-Friday, Sept. 27-28, at 8 p.m.; Saturday, Sept. 29, at 2 and 8 p.m.; and Sunday, Sept. 30, at 2 p.m. at Common Ground Theatre, 4815-B Hillsborough Rd., Durham, North Carolina. $15 ($7 students, seniors, and active-duty military personnel). 919/771-3281 or http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/19067. BARE THEATRE: http://www.baretheatre.org/next.html. COMMON GROUND THEATRE: http://www.cgtheatre.com/. SHAKESPEARE RESOURCES (courtesy University of Virginia): http://etext.virginia.edu/shakespeare/. E-TEXT (courtesy UVa): http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ShaTNF.html (1623 First Folio Edition) and http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/MobTwel.html (1866 Globe Edition).