TWELFTH NIGHT
This production shifts the play’s locale to a California Gold Rush encampment in 1851, the height of the boom. While the youth and vigor of the company members (the oldest can’t be much more than 30) rendered their premiere production last year, Miss Julie, little more than a singularly grueling acting-class exercise, these qualities work perfectly in the rough-and-ready universe of a frontier settlement.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The symptoms of gold fever are certainly present in Shakespeare’s tale, chiefly in the narrative line involving the courtship of a wealthy heiress, Olivia (in this production the sister of a recently deceased magistrate), by three suitors: Orsino, the new town judge; Andrew Aguecheek, a greenhorn come west to seek his fortune and a conceited self-promoter; and Malvolio, an ambitious legal clerk whose professed asceticism hides an avarice and egotism as great as his rivals’. All three appear more interested in themselves than in the lady they claim to adore (though the lady seems likewise self-absorbed).
This museum basement doesn’t allow much in the way of scenery–though the choreography makes clever use of the two sight-blocking posts at the corners of the stage area–so the players make do, as Shakespeare did, with a chair or two, some carefully chosen props (like Malvolio’s antique pince-nez), and Tammy Berlin’s well-coordinated costumes. Credit is also due to Julie Crossen, whose plaintive violin strains of “My Darling Clementine,” the anthem of the Gold Rush, sets the time, place, and mood to perfection.
