Twelfth Night

UWA's New Fortune Theatre is a wonderful venue - unique in the southern hemisphere - and the most authentic version of an Elizabethan performance space you can experience without traveling to London. It was great to have an evening free from the standard TV fare of financial meltdown, earthquake, radiation, fire, flood, famine and revolution; to simply enjoy being transported by one of Shakespeare's best-loved works in its most fitting environment. "Transported" truly is the operative word here, as director Peter Clark has very cleverly flipped the play into a dream sequence populated by classic toys from the dreamer's giant bedroom. The concept is daring but very successful. One quickly accepts the morphing of the characters into Teddy Bear, Betty Boop, Action Man, Noddy, Bo Peep, Jack-in-the-Box etc. and the Bard's brilliant plot and humour proceed untarnished. Opening night became quite breezy, which can be a problem at the open-roofed New Fortune Theatre, but the cast all did a fabulous job on vocal clarity and projection with the result that I discerned almost every single word. Thankfully. Twelfth Night is a fairly complex plot including twins, masquerading and misunderstandings, so any garbled script could be disastrous to "getting" it. I admit I had taken the precaution of a quick read through Charles and Mary Lamb's synopsis beforehand, but as it happened that insurance wasn't really necessary. Congratulations to all concerned. Every player inhabited his/her role (and some challenging costume) admirably, and in a large cast there is pleasingly and unusually no weak link. There is a lot of excellent physical comedy, a heaps of lovely facial and vocal colour given to the lines. My personal "man of the match" vote goes to Krysia Wiechecki in the role of Viola, but truly they all deserve an honourable mention. This first performance of the run had a rather small audience but they appeared to thoroughly enjoy it. The show deserves a much higher cheeks-on-seats quotient. GRADS' standard over the years of their Summer Shakespeare tradition has had some ups and downs and this one is surely at the very favourable end of the scale. It is early in the theatrical year, but don't forget this production when Finley time rolls round again. Director, costumes, several performers and the (yours truly) set all deserve gongs. Performances continue tonight through to Saturday, and next week Tuesday to Saturday. Tickets via BOCS, and N.B. it is a 7.30 start!! A word of advice; mosquitoes are rife this year. Dose up on the repellent.