“The Food of Love”
Last week, as I subwayed home to Queens from a midtown show,
I was so immersed in my book that I didn’t immediately notice I was sitting
alone in my corner at the end of the bench. A fellow rider, sprawled across the
opposite bench, had made a generous donation to my car of whatever he’d been
digesting, and everybody had moved to the sides. Sometimes, it pays to have an
insensitive nose. |
| Nikki M. James and the Blue community. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Quickly, this being the subway, I got into a lively
discussion with the woman on my right, who told me that the boy, her13-year old
son, was a cast member in the current Shakespeare in the Park revival of Twelfth Night, which incorporates the
services of a numerous local citizens affiliated with various
community organizations. The boy, whose name I neglected to get, is involved
with the Brownsville Recreation Center, formerly the Brownsville Boys Club,
where I once did a teaching internship.
Like the other community participants in Twelfth Night, he’s one of two approximately
50-member ensembles (Red and Blue) that appear. Sadly, I discovered that he was
in the Red group and I’d be seeing the Blue when I was scheduled to attend. If
his proud mom, to whom I gave my card, happens to read this, send me a shout
out!
For several years now, the Public Theater has been producing three-performance runs (separate from the annual Shakespeare in the Park presentations) of
heavily adapted, musicalized classical material at Central Park’s Delacorte
Theatre. They operate under the rubric of its Public Works program, created by the wonderful director Lear deBessonet in
2012, which has become a model of civic engagement with theatre arts. Twelfth Night follows in the wake of The
Tempest (2013), The Winter’s Tale
(2014), The Odyssey (2015), an earlier Twelfth Night (2016) directed by Kwei-Armah, and As You Like It (2017), which
I had to leave midway through because the weather that night had no regard
for its civic duties.
The current Twelfth
Night, codirected by the Public’s artistic director Oskar Eustis and Kwame
Kwei-Armah, the new artistic director of London’s Young Vic (where a separate version
will be done this fall), is the first Public Works show produced for a
five-week run under the Shakespeare in the Park banner.
A “reimagining” of the 2016 Central Park production (which I
missed), it resembles its above-named Public Works predecessors in being a
freely adapted, considerably shortened (to 100 minutes!), and heavily
musicalized version of the Bard’s original. The idea, though, isn’t new, what
with musical versions of Twelfth Night having
occupied New York stages since Your Own Thing in
1968, Music Is in 1976, Play On! in 1997, and a 2009
Shakespeare in the Park staging using a symphonic rock score by the band Hem.
 |
| Shaina Taub and the Blue community. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
The driving creative force here is Shaina
Taub, the ultra-talented 29-year-old singer, musician, composer, and
lyricist gradually becoming a major musical theatre presence. Taub, who has not
only written a melodically delightful, unpretentious, and frequently enchanting
score in the jazz, pop, and Broadway show tune modes, appears as Feste the
clown, whom she makes a central figure.
 |
| Patrick J. O'Hare (holding beverage), Shaina Taub, Shuler Hensley, and the Blue community. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Among her first-rate songs are Toby Belch’s insult-laden
drinking song, “You Are the Worst,” the lovely ballad, “Is This Not Love?,” a
chorus line number featuring Malvolio and the ensemble in yellow top hats, and the
fight preparation song, “What Kind of Man Are You Gonna Be?” (No playlist was
provided so I’m guessing at the titles.)
 |
| Andrew Kober and the Blue community. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Taub’s lyrics are more contemporary prose than musicalized
quotes from Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter, but they nicely fit the feel-good
tone of the production. In her hands, Feste is a busker-like emcee in boldly
striped colors and cap, and an accordion at her breast when she’s not at the
piano. Although acting is not her forte, she comments personably on the story
in song and speech.
 |
| Lori Brown-Niang (in pink), Shuler Hensley, and Blue community. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Conceptually, this is by no means a novel Twelfth Night, although purists will
surely rage at its desecrations. The severely cut text, which nonetheless manages
to hew closely to Shakespeare’s original, retains a few chunks of his dialogue—especially
the most accessible ones—in a script mingled with contemporary dialogue. Some
cast members are deaf, in recognition of which many lines are conveyed by the
actors both aurally and in ASL, although you might wonder why the signing is as
selective as it is.
This Twelfth Night’s
relative faithfulness to Shakespeare contrasts it with Desperate
Measures, the popular
Off-Broadway musical adaptation of Measure
for Measure. The latter is an entirely new work maintaining only an outline
of its source. The Public’s show is essentially a Twelfth Night primer, an Eighth
Night, if you will; nevertheless, it’s hard to escape the feeling that, entertaining as
it is, its simplifications tend to patronize the wider audience to which it’s
reaching out.
The many diverse nonprofessionals of all sizes, colors,
shapes, and ages do things like banding together to suggest a sea tempest but,
in general, dance (to Lorin Latarro's choreography), sing, and mill about as Illyria’s lively townspeople. Apart
from their vibrant presence, there are notably few unusual interpretive tricks
up the show’s sleeves to differentiate it from other modern-dress versions.
 |
| Nanya-Akuki Goodrich, Ato Blankson-Wood. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Casting of the principals is as diverse as that of the community
players, with actors playing roles they’d be unlikely to land in more
conventional productions, and not necessarily because of ethnicity. The show
makes no pretense at being realistic; two African-American performers play the
identical twins Viola/Cesario (Nikki M. James) and Sebastian (Troy Anthony) but
that can’t hide their considerable differences, especially their relative size.
All that’s needed is similar costuming and the idea is clear.
 |
| Troy Anthony, Nikki M. James, Blue company. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Most of the staging, as in the comical combat (crafted by
fight director Lisa Kopitsky) between Andrew Aguecheek (Daniel Hall) and Viola,
or the confinement of Malvolio (Andrew Kober) to a Porta Potty (with hilarious
aftereffects), presses hard on the farce pedal. The audience responds with
frequent laughter to such business, as it does to occasional verbal
interpolations along the lines of “Oh, shit!”
Nothing of particular interpretive significance is suggested
by designer Rachel Hauck’s generic background of a manor house (attractively lit by John Torres) with three large
doors and several second story balcony openings, nor by Andrea Hood’s dozens of
bright costumes, which convey a party-time air more than one of any particular
time and place.
 |
| Jonathan Jordan, Daniel Hall. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
All the principals are fine and some have standout moments.
These include Nanya-Akuki Goodrich as Olivia, Ato Blankson Wood as Orsino,
Shuler Hensley as Toby Belch, Lori Brown-Niang as Maria, and Jonathan Jordan as
Antonio (whose attraction to Sebastian the play enjoys stressing).
 |
| Blue company. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
My advice is to leave your Shakespearean preferences and
preconceptions at home, be more a partygoer than a theatregoer, enjoy the good
vibes and sweet tunes of an eclectic New York community gathered for a worthwhile cultural purpose,
and pray for balmy breezes to blow, to and fro.
OTHER VIEWPOINTS:
Delacorte Theater/Shakespeare in the Park
Central Park West at W. 81st St., NYC
Through August 19
