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This week on NT Live at Home: Twelfth Night, viewable for free here until this Thursday night, when we lose Twelfth Night and gain Frankenstein (with Benedict Cumberbatch). Lucky us!

And you’ll be shocked to hear it’s another excellent one. This is a great play, and I love the casting and the acting here. Viola/Cesario and Sebastian are Black; Malvolio, Fabian and Feste the fool are women (Malvolia, Fabia and… I think just Fool); and the whole thing has been recast in, what, 1930s-ish trappings? There’s no modernization of the dialog, thankfully, just the visual effects. I love the gender play, and what could make more sense in a play where a woman dresses up as a man to woo another woman on behalf of another man, than to mess about with gender roles a bit more? Malvolia is as ridiculous as ever; the lesbian twist on her desire for her boss is only natural. I think this may be the best Malvolio I’ve seen (although he was memorable in that movie version). I think the best chemistry of the whole production was that between Viola/Cesario and Duke Orsino. Sebastian is hot, and I loved the moment with Orsino gets confused one more time at the end and kisses the wrong twin; but the Viola + Orsino scenes have something going on that no other prospective couple achieves.

This one also features another creative set design, circular and moveable-changeable. While not all reviewers loved the drag/fetish club scene, I thought it was great fun. Again they had me guffawing out loud and startling a sleeping old dog (sorry, Hops). I was all-around entertained. I think Twelfth Night might be one of Shakespeare’s most accessible plays to follow, and there is fun here for anyone, promise. I’d watch it again in a heartbeat and heartily recommend it all around, as usual for everything NT Live offers.

Continuing my new pandemic tradition of reviewing other cool stuff on the web: I was so pleased with this astonishing performance (via a link from Mark Doty, so thank you for that, sir) that I’ve watched it several times now. It’s tableaux vivants of Caravaggio paintings, performed to Mozart; but beyond the classical tableau vivant which is a stationary performance, these are shown in setup and takedown as a whole moving theatre. The addition of movement helps me to appreciate the physical strength of the players, making it athletic as well as dramatic as well as a visual art form – plus the music – really a revelation.

A couple of nights ago I “attended” a 50th anniversary show for KPFT, Houston’s Pacifica public radio station, and got to see performances by nearly three dozen artists with ties to my hometown, including a couple of old favorites and a few I didn’t know but was really drawn to. Hayes Carll made me cry unexpectedly. Other highlights included BettySoo, Ruthie Foster, Shinyribs, and Lisa Morales. I don’t think this is available anywhere now, but it was a real treat for me, and since then I’ve been spending some time on Carolyn Wonderland’s YouTube page.

Finally, and while we’re thinking about Shakespeare, I dug this Guardian article about the question of reading drama versus watching it performed onstage. I guess I’ve always assumed that theatre performances were the highest actualization of any piece of written drama – why write a play but to have it performed? But there are some good points here. I’ve certainly enjoyed reading drama, and while there’s a special place in my heart for the stage, it’s nice to be reminded that we can all bring Shakespeare (and others) home with us as well. The timely article is about bringing him home now when we can’t get out to the theatre, but of course, thank dog for NT Live! Yes, you can have it all!

I watched a great movie the other night too but that one gets its own review, of course. I think this is the week that pagesofjulia will have to return to thrice-weekly posts… so much goodness in the world, in terms of art and entertainment. Plenty of bad, too, but so much good.

Filed under: musings | Tagged: classics, movies, National Theatre Live, Shakespeare, theatre, visual arts |