Lasting Impressions by Florence McDermott

Tamburrino’s ‘Twelfth Night’: Love in a Time of Confusion

You could call “Twelfth Night” [Glimmer Globe Theatre] a love triangle, where a man and a woman vie for the affection of a cross-dressing tease. The plot could have been written today—without Shakespeare’s glorious language. But the play is much more than a romance. The real juice of the show takes place with the downstairs crew, who cook up a plot to amuse each other while the swells upstairs pine and delude themselves.

The fabulous comic trio of Sir Toby Belch (Tom Russo), Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Mark Murphy), and Maria the Maid (Mary Davis Fralick) keep the temperature up and the audience laughing with hijinks, lewd jests, and bawdy gestures. They are a perfect group, using brilliant physical comedy (a hilarious Russo) and racy banter while poking holes at the aristocracy.

Meanwhile, the maid, Maria—the wily servant who knows more than everyone else—raises the heat to a boil with her saucy charm. Feste the Fool (Orion Palmer) moves smoothly between high and low characters, dispensing wit that’s anything but foolish. The object of their jibes, the stuck-up steward Malvolio (the intense John Melvin), gets his comeuppance to remind us that fun often comes at someone else’s expense. Malvolio’s rage at the show’s end twists the comic screw so tight that it becomes tragedy worthy of Lear.

Meanwhile, upstairs everyone except the principals is having a good time. The setting of the action is fast-forwarded to the Roaring Twenties, where everything goes. Flappers dance at Duke Orsino’s (Liam Herbert) nightclub. They shimmy, drink and dance in fabulous fringed dresses while the principals wallow in misery. Duke has been courting Olivia (a commanding Allie Tabor-Church) without success. Olivia falls in love with Viola (the excellent Gillian Canavan), who’s dressed as Caesario. Viola/Caesario has also captured Duke’s eye, as he resists his attraction to her. Olivia and Duke listen to melancholy music while Viola/Caesario tries to fend off Olivia.

One of the most brilliant bits of staging includes a memorable scene which pits a terrified Olivia/Caesario forced into a boxing match with Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who’s just as scared of her. The reluctant combatants keep the laughs up as they cavort around the ring in outlandish costumes, both of them seeing monsters which are only paper tigers.

Viola’s twin, Sebastian (Andrew Munro), shows up to square the love triangle, providing a mate for Olivia while allowing Viola and Duke to express their love.

Kudos to original music by Tim Iversen and the vision of Director Michael Tamburrino to frame the play as a madcap musical comedy. It’s a tribute to Iversen’s talent to be able to craft Shakespeare’s words into tunes that range from melancholy to jazzy and sound both light-hearted and thoughtful.

Director Tamburrino keeps the action flowing in a most creative way by having characters dressed as household servants and kitchen workers change the scenery in a seamless manner. Tamburrino breathes new life into the plot and makes it feel fresh, even though it premiered in 1602, while Elizabeth I was still on the throne of England.

Florence McDermott is the editor of the Rotary Club of Cooperstown’s newsletter, “The Oil Can.”