TWELFTH NIGHT. Director: Steven Stead. Cast: Emily Child, Jenny Stead, David Viviers, Graham Hopkins, Aidan Scott, Jock Kleynhans, Michael Richard and more. Original music: Wessel Odendaal. At Maynardville Open Air Theatre, Cape Town.
BEVERLEY BROMMERT reviews
Seldom does Shakespearean comedy generate such immediate rapport with a contemporary audience as this rollicking version of Twelfth Night: a complicity sustained throughout by deft direction and polished performances.
It says something for the near-organic cohesion of the current production that identifying individual excellence is a challenge. Leads, secondary characters and cameo roles alike are artfully subsumed into seamless ensemble to offer audiences entertainment resembling a well-crafted jigsaw puzzle wherein every piece is a perfect fit.
Thus a notable feature of this Twelfth Night is the collective zest with which it is delivered, a zest in keeping with the insouciant joie de vivre of the age chosen to update it: the glamorous 1960s of Italy’s dolce vita. Very dolce indeed.
Transported to another world
From the opening sequence of a capricious Orsino (Jock Kleynhans) ranting on about music as the food of love, to the obligatory multiple weddings of the finale – and with many an unlikely vicissitude in between – the audience is transported to a world in which rationality is irrelevant. Welcome to the heady saturnalia over which the Lord of Misrule presides with glee …
Not even the “notoriously abus’d” Malvolio (Graham Hopkins) is allowed to darken the prevailing luminosity, as he is more comical than tragic, emerging from his comeuppance dishevelled but unbowed and vowing revenge.
Main protagonists are likewise resilient in the wake of sobering experience, wiser in self-knowledge rather than chastened thereby. Each has identity issues, strengths and weaknesses.
A rich vein of comedy is tapped as, one after another, these characters, notably the resourceful Viola (Emily Child) and self-absorbed Olivia (Jenny Stead) grapple with an inconvenient disconnect between true self and carefully curated public image; succinctly put, “How quickly the wrong side may be turned outwards.”
Delectable sophistication
Subtle psychological comment offered by Feste, the perspicacious Fool (David Viviers) is cheek by jowl with coarse groundling humour from the likes of Sir Toby Belch (Michael Richard) and Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Aidan Scott), further widening the appeal of this merry comedy.
Its delectable sophistication is promoted by Greg King’s elegant set, Oliver Hauser’s warmly evocative lighting, and most of all, a clever synthesis of archaic lyrics and smooth jazzy rhythms courtesy of Wessel Odendaal.
Small wonder that this Twelfth Night takes its audience on board at the outset – and keeps it there.
What: Twelfth Night review
Where and when: Maynardville Park from 30 January to 7 March 2026
Book Twelfth Night tickets: Quicket
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