Dark 'Night'

When it comes to selecting a Shakespearean play to be part of larger a festival, you can't do much better than "Twelfth Night, or What You Will." Shakespeare's comedic discourse on love and the heedlessness it can inspire — from obsessively concealing, to foolishly revealing, our deepest desires — was originally performed for a Christmastime celebration in London. Its tone is light, for the most part, albeit with plenty of choice Shakespearean lines to chew on ("Such we are made of, such we be").

Alchemical Theatre Co.'s intimate production of "Twelfth Night" for the University of North Carolina Wilmington's Lumina Festival of the Arts hits the comedy of the play, which runs through July 28 in the Cultural Arts Building's black box SRO Theatre on campus, plenty hard. Under the direction of Alchemical founder Christopher Marino, however, the show also explores the darkness that often lies beneath comedy.

The story is set in motion by a shipwreck, well-staged (and well-lit by designer John McCall) in flashback, that separates twin brother and sister Sebastian and Viola (Paul Teal and Ester Williamson, both solid). Viola lands on the coast of Illyria, in Greece, where she goes into disguise as a man, Caesario, and soon comes under the employ of the Duke Orsino (Michael Dix Thomas) to help him woo the lady Olivia (Shanara Gabrielle, drawing the very picture of bored upper-class lust and entitlement). Complicating matters, Olivia falls for Viola in disguise as Caesario while Viola develops feelings for Orsino.

Marino has said he wants to evoke a Weimar Germany setting with the show's production design. Pointedly, the Weimar era was the decade and a half before the Nazis took complete control of Germany, and given that many people feel the United States could be in a similar period, it stamps these centuries-old antics with present-day concerns. I'm not sure much in the play itself says "darkening political storm clouds," but the staging certainly casts a wariness over the proceedings.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Adrian Varnam's music, which is beautiful but not in the celebratory or upbeat way you might expect in a comedy. Rather, the dark, rootsy, folk-flavored songs are mostly melancholy and even haunting, and while that's sometimes played for comic effect, it adds a note of doleful foreboding. The show is filled with music, and the actors will occasionally pick up instruments and contribute vocal harmonies. 

Olivia's fool, Feste, is played by Keegan Siebken, who employs a fine voice for his character's many numbers although his scenes are more edgy than funny. Siebken's Feste is no crazy clown, but more of a wry, spooky joker. A ghost, almost, who's quite different from yet somehow evokes the doomed emcee from "Cabaret."

The show looks great, and Max Lydy's set, which features dozens of chairs and love seats mounted to the walls, takes over the entirety of the black box SRO's cozy quarters. A cool sliding platform is the centerpiece, but scenes take place in various corners and even spill out into the seating area, where the audience is right on top of the action. It's not immersive, exactly, more like immersive-lite, and audience members are occasionally handed props or otherwise acknowledged by the performers.

Marino's cast is filled with professional Equity actors, and the performances range from solid to spectacular.

A secondary plot concerns the dissolute Sir Toby Belch, played by a miscast but all-in Fred Grandy, and his attempts to set up his niece, Olivia, with one Sir Andrew Aguecheek, played by Ashley Strand. Strand is pencil-thin, wears an intentionally unconvincing comb-over and is outfitted by costume designer Jessica Gaffney in a wonderfully hideous canary-yellow jacket, plaid pants and straw boater. As a presence he's unhinged and nearly maniacal, and Strand is such a gifted comic that he threatens to steal every scene he's in, employing a seemingly innate physical humor and a voice that can range from a belting bray to a strangled, tortured whisper.

Another thread concerns the humiliation of Olivia's dour, puritanical servant Malvolio. As played by the excellent Eric C. Bailey he's haughty and officious for sure, but also given to flights of fancy, something Bailey brings to life quite nicely when Malvolio reads a letter penned by Olivia's servant Maria (Paula Hubman-Daniel, outstanding) intended to trick him into thinking Olivia fancies him. The ruse succeeds, as the once-severe Malvolio struts about the stage (costumed by Gaffney in eye-searing yellows and oranges) as Toby, Andrew and Fabian (played by Anthony Police like Rodney Dangerfield as one of the Three Stooges) mock him from the shadows.

For many folks, we live in deeply concerning, if not alarming times, and it may be that Marino felt uncomfortable staging a purely frothy comedy given all that's going on in the world. In any case, this production of "Twelfth Night" entertains, but it unsettles as well.

Contact John Staton at 910-343-2343 or John.Staton@StarNewsOnline.com.

Want to go?

What: "Twelfth Night, or What You Will," by William Shakespeare, presented by Alchemical Theatre Co. and UNCW's Lumina Festival of the Arts.

When: 7:30 p.m. July 19, 21, 26 and 28, 2 p.m. July 28

Where: SRO Theatre in the Cultural Arts Building, UNCW campus

Info: Tickets are $24-$48.

Details: 910-962-3500 or UNCW/edu/Arts