Theatre / “Twelfth Night”, Bell Shakespeare. At The Canberra Theatre Playhouse, until October 21. Reviewed by SIMONE PENKETHMAN. 

BELL Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” contrasts quick, cruel comedy with a heart-rending soundtrack. 

Music is integral to “Twelfth Night”, which includes the famous line: “If music be the food of love, play on”. In this production, music and songs are by well-known recording artist and composer Sarah Blasko.

Tomáš Kantor, as the non-binary fool Feste, breathes spellbinding life into Blasko’s songs with an impressive vocal range and high-camp cabaret style. 

Kantor’s live piano accompaniment supports both the music and the comedy throughout the show. 

Set and costume designer Charles Davis creates a world that could be any time or place. The set is spare but evocative with horizontal tree branches and a piano in lieu of furniture. 

The plot is ostensibly a gender-bending, mistaken-identity farce. 

Shipwrecked twins, Viola (Alfie Gledhill and Isabel Burton) and Sebastian (Isabel Burton), each believe the other to have perished at sea. 

Viola disguises herself as a man to gain employment. Ultimately, they are reunited and married off, in a traditional comedic happy ending.

In this show, it is the sub-plot of a drunk uncle, sassy servant, witless knight, pompous steward and Feste the fool, that offers pathos and entertainment value to the audience.

Jane Montgomery Griffiths delivers a compelling performance as the steward Malvolia (traditionally Malvolio, a male character). After being tricked by a forged letter into believing that her mistress is in love with her, Malvolia adopts a ridiculous costume and mannerisms and is declared mad.

The comedy turns dark and the piano serves as a kind of portal to the underground, through which Feste teases and taunts Malvolia.

Casting Malvolia as female and Feste as non-binary are decisions by director Heather Fairbairn that work well in the service of the show. 

Less successful is her decision to have a male actor play the female twin, Viola, for most of the show while a female actor plays the male twin Sebastian. According to her show notes, this is to “reinstate the dramaturgical effect of an all-male cast”, as was the case in Shakespeare’s time.

However, in her mixed-gender cast, this added complexity is distracting, confusing and ultimately unresolved.

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