STRATFORD SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL: II

STRATFORD, Conn.--It is not often that sets and costumes merit the first and highest praise in a Shakespearean production, but the current Twelfth Night on view at stratford is certainly one instance. The dramatist laid the play in Illyris near the Adriatic coast; but the locale is of no particular import, and Will Steven Armstrong decided to make this romantic comedy a little more exotic by pushing it into a Near East such as Elizaebthans might have envisioned.

The architecture has recourse to Moorish arches of the typical multifoil horseshoe type. In keeping with the mellow glow that permeates the script, Armstrong has used light buff walls with abstract Turkish surface decoration--a gold for Duke Orsino's palace, and in pink and blue for Lady Olivia's house.

Since the play ping-pongs between these two households, it was logical to devise a basic unit-set in which the entrances of the two residences face each other diagonally at the sides of the stage with an open vista between -- much in the manner of the conventional settings of ancient comedy.

Armstrong introduced some flexibility, however, to facilitate the play's special demands. The well panels can side back to reveal the interiors. For the several important scenes in Olivia's garden, not only is there a potted palm at the far edge of the stage, but the wall of her house wings out to become a trellis covered with oranges and greenery, punctuated by three oval holes through which is Toby, Sir Andrew and Fabian can stick their heads to spy and comment on Malvolio's famous Letter Scene. All the shifts work smoothly and allow the play to flow unimpeded.

The people who inhabit this environment are no less pre-catching, thanks to the gorgeous costumes by Jane Greenwood. There has been no skimping here. But the swishness has not been distributed indiscriminately: Miss Greenwood has carefully suited all her garments to the essential personalities of their wearers.

The sentimental Duke is clothed in rich blue and green brocade, and the garments of his companions are equally handsome, Olivia, in mourning for her brother, wears brown and black, and carries a conical parasol. Her conniving uncle Sir Today, a toper, is a monstrous barrel of rose wine come to life, with a wide sash just barely able to function as a hoop to keep the barrel from bursting. The foolish Sir Andrew is dothed in an orange and claret that are subtly incompatible.

Malvolio

The puritanical and humorless Malvolio, the square peg in the play's round hole, wears a long black gown and sports a moustache and goatee, looking for all the world as though he had just been sitting for a sober portrait by Van Dyck or Rembrandt. Feste the Clown is dressed in pink and rose, and makes use of hand-pup-sets. The earnest Viola first appears is dark gold; but when she disguises herself as the page Cesario, both she and her twin brother Sebatian (each believing the other drowned) are clothed in white-ruffed cerulean, exuding the purity of Gainsborough's "Blue Boy."

This uniform visual excellence, lovingly lit by Tharon Musser, is all the more welcome when one recalls the hodge-podge of eyesores that afflicted the Festival's production of the play six years ago, with its vulgar Coney Island atmosphere and people cavorting in bath towels and swimming suits.

This year's show does not, however, serve the car as well as it serves the eye -- either in its actual music or its word-music. The performers generally acquit themselves with moderate success, but not much more. Twelfth Nights is an ensemble show; no one or two players can make or break it, for these are no truly starring roles.

As directed by Frank Hauser, the production's most consistence and all-of-a-piece performance is Josef Sommer's as Malvolio, who with the Clown constitute the fulcrum upon which the play seesawa. This portrayal is well-spoken and properly starchy, comical without intending to be, always controlled and never overdone. Sommer's handling of the scene where he reads the forged letter, which he reads the forged letter, which he amusingly first employs as a fan, works admirably except that, when he quotes, "If this fall into thy hand, revolve," he ought to spin around in ridiculous compliance. He makes the yellow-stockings scene quite memorable, especially with the bright red cross-garters and their ludicrous gold tassels.

There is much more to Sir Toby than Patrick Hines has yet found in him. And the trombone glissandi that accompany his tipsy entrance are a tasteless crudity that should be returned to the vaudeville hall whence they came. Sir Andrew's lines project well from James Valentine's slim physique; and there is a good deal of Stan Laurel in this droll performance. But how could a director be so derelict as to let Toby's suggestion, "Now let's have a catch," elicit at once Andrew's comment, "By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast," with nary so much as one phrase of a catch sung between?

The Duel

The duel between Andrew and Cesario offers a director a fine chance to show some comic inventiveness, and fortunately Hauser was up to it. Andrew begins the fight with a fencing manual in his left hand, and before you know it Cesario with up holding both swords. In a subsequent go-around Andrew is so afraid of opening his eyes that he finds himself blindly bashing against the sword hanging at Sir Toby's side. This whole skirmish is a howl.

Peter Stuart is an attractive Sebastian. And, perhaps taking a cue from his remarks, "I am yet so near the manners of my mother," his performance is rather effeminate, which has the virtue of meeting half way that of his twin sister Viola disguised as a boy. Alas, their speech shatters any illusion that they could possibly be siblings, let alone the same person. Stuart's is refined, musical, obviously British-trained; Joan Darling's is edgy, ugly, obviously American. Again and again she murders the meter; and, in her beautiful "patience on a monument" speech and elsewhere, she seems not to understand a word she is saying.

Patricia Peardon makes a beautiful Olivia, though she is not at ease with her lines; and the veils she and her retinue wear when Viola-Cesario first visits her ought to be far less transparent. Elizabeth Parrish needs to invest the part of Olivia's maid Maria with more vivacity. Fabian, her male counterpart, fails in the hands of Julian Miller to leave much of any impression at all.

John Cunningham's Duke is clear but tepid. Adolph Caesar brings a rich voice to the Priest, but his make-believe senility is false. Stephen Pearlman's Antonio exhibits acrocious diction and no comprehension. And how could the director allow him to pass right by Viola-Cesario when exiting in pursuit of the look-alike Sebastian without Antonio's batting an eye? The suspension of disbelief can stretch only so far.

Richard Mathews makes a valiant attempt at the clown Feste, but it is folly to cast this role with anyone who is not also a singer, since he has several solo songs. Conrad Susa's music is a mishmash of styles. "O mistress mine," accompanied by bells, suffered from Mathews' inability to sing on pitch. At the opening performance he did better with "Come away, death," a quite lovely piece accompanied by two oboes and a harp. He is allowed to end the show as Shakespeare wrote it, singing "When that I was" all alone on stage. The lights go down, stars come out on a dark blue cyclorama, and Mathews punctuates his five verses with the tintinnabulation of tiny finger-bells. The effect is charming. How much more so it would be with a professional singer!

Still Hoping

I still have hopes of seeing a wholly satisfactory production of Twelfth Night before I die. Shakespeare had to go through the experience of writing the highly flawed Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It just before he was able to fashion Twelfth Night, the last of his pure comedies and the only one that arguably achieves perfection. Our Stratfordians have to date offered two highly flawed productions of this priceless play; perhaps they too will be able to approach perfection on the third try