Famed director and critic Harold Clurman once said that clarity of speech is not a matter of technical proficiency alone. It results from a definiteness of dramatic impulse. Neither are on display in AC Productions' reading of Twelfth Night, presented at Project Arts Centre in July.
While the company does not have access to the cast or the coffers that a Rough Magic or Druid production might have, this isn’t their first time on the carousel. They have mounted and toured many productions of the Bard’s work, both at home and abroad, and should be aware of the demands such a staging puts on a company due to the sheer length of the text and an audience either unfamiliar with the language, or overly exposed to Shakespeare's most popular shows. You need to be driven by an insuppressible desire to bring something new and fresh to the play and assemble a company with the ability to make that happen. A strong emotional thread needs to be woven, and directorial path cleared, so the audience doesn’t get pummelled by the language and sheer depth of the drama. By proxy, you need to give yourself enough rehearsal time to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen to your cast. As the two hours' action unfolded across the Project stage, it never become clear what - if anything - director Peter Reid was trying to do or say with this production.
For a screwball comedy like Twelfth Night to work, you have to be convinced that these farcical scenarios are happening to real people. The darkness, the sadness and true sense of emotion that should reek from a kingdom like Illyria, where death and deception are commonplace, have been thrown over here in favour of forced frivolity. The characters don't seem attuned to what’s going on in their world, hence the situations they find themselves in feel as if they are of little consequence.
Matters aren’t helped by the fact that the story is incredibly difficult to follow, not only because the cast blanket the verse in over-the-top English accents but because they speak at top speed, without emphasis.
Costume designer Fiona Ryan has decked the players out in modern-ish dress (Feste wears a Mötley Crüe t-shirt, offset with a lick of mascara; Valentine and Curio wear block-coloured trousers and pointy shoes) but there is no cohesion to her choices, adding nothing to the story nor helping root it in a particular time and place.
We never invest in what happens in this production as it has failed to ask the vital questions regarding the characters and the play itself. For me the theme of drowning, both physical and psychological, is the key to unravelling Twelfth Night. Characters are drowning in self-righteousness, self-pity and self-satisfaction - not to mention alcohol. But the way the performers behave here, under Reid's direction, you would swear that nothing was wrong in their characters’ lives. Reid has not chosen a unifying theme, so that the whole thing becomes an endless glut of dick jokes, never-ending musical interludes, and acting with one’s eyebrows and elbows instead of one’s mind. We never get to the root of the characters’ cruelty or desperation, reducing the bite of the wit and any impact the production might have had.
Caomhan Keane has written about theatre for The Irish Times, Sunday Independent and entertainmment.ie