Arts
Reviewed! Twelfth Night, by PLoT
Life’s a bitch when you have to dress up as a dude in order to ingratiate yourself into a new society after a particularly nasty shipwreck. But it’s even worse when you fall into an absurdist love triangle, complicated by your new “dude” status.
Such is life for us poor wenches. All we want to do is survive the stormy seas, get a nice day job and shack up with a hot guy. But alas, our girly bits keep getting in the way.
Twelfth Night is an interesting Shakespearean comedy in that it addresses issues like gender-bending, same-sex attraction and female independence in patriarchal society. But the themes in this rollicking comedy are probably more representative of the kinds of arguments everyone’s having on Facebook these days rather than thigh-slapping material, like they were in days gone by.
The student-run PLoT Theatre Company has decided to take these elements and set them by the 1960s beachside. Our thespians run about half-clad in teeny bikinis and loiter on banana lounges beside a tiki-styled bar, downing shots throughout the entire production.
Why?
Well, although the play is a light-hearted comedy, there are in Twelfth Night parts that PLoT has described as “sinister” – the nasty treatment of Malvolio, who is ultimately an object of ridicule and contempt, and the ignoring of Antonio, the nearest Shakespeare comes to a homosexual character.
This blend of “fun” and “not so nice” is perfectly encapsulated by 1960s party society, director CJ Bowers reckons, and he thinks it’s pretty easy to correlate the setting of Illyria as a “party island”.
It works with varying levels of success. Certainly it’s easy to perceive the 60s beachside fun era as having complexities beyond its parasols and flirty skirts. It’s also a nice stretch to envision Shakespeare’s Illyria as our Ibiza.
However as a production, the static seaside set makes it difficult to differentiate the houses of Olivia and Orsino, and in some ways the costuming seems a little incongruent with our characters effectively holding court.
There are some strong performances in this rendition of Twelfth Night, particularly by Bella Young as Viola and Emma Skalicky as Feste.
The female cast in particular are an absolutely gorgeous-looking mob, and some parts – such as the Malvolio spying scene – are rip-snortingly hilarious. It’s a fun production and a solid effort – take a snort of rum in with you to really get into the seafaring mood.
Twelfth Night: Peacock Theatre, dates remaining:
Wednesday 6 May 8pm
Thursday 7 May 8pm
Friday 8 May 8pm
Saturday 9 May 8pm
Amber Wilson