Vegan in Jamaica? Yah Mon!by Randi / February 26, 2020It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Leopoldstadt, playing at London’s Wyndham’s Theatre in an open-ended run.
I mean, man alive. If you want to feel like you’ve been punched in the gut but are really grateful for it, then you are ready for Tom Stoppard’s new, and possibly his last, play Leopoldstadt. Following an extended Jewish family from 1899 in Vienna until, well, later, the play is a heavy exploration of how this family’s fortunes changed from one generation to the next and how their country treated them over time. The giant cast and the constantly changing ages of the characters prevent real attachment to any individual – or real grasping of who’s who – but the details are less important than the serious emotional pull created in this powerful work.
And that emotional heft is considerable. Despite not fully understanding how each relative was connected (there’s a family tree in the programme, but good luck keeping it all straight (you won’t!)), those particulars weren’t necessary to understand who these people were and to care in general about what was going to happen as we get further into the 20th century. The play achieves an almost immediate sense of intimacy with this family, helped by little glimpses of how all the members interact, throwing us right into their gatherings and conversations without wasting time explaining. The visuals help as well, with the lush Christmas celebration at the start and the same room slowly changing, and dwindling, scene by scene.
The family quickly feels familiar, even though with each scene change and time jump you have new faces to put to somewhat-old names as well as new names and faces to try to connect to those old names you sort of remember. (Don’t think about it too hard, too too hard.) When the names do stick, the payoff is remarkable (especially when you think e.g. ‘oh that little tot Heini is supes adorbs’ and then at the last part of the show you squeaky cry remembering who he is). We follow the family through a changing Vienna and a changing Leopoldstadt, the Jewish quarter, as they go from well-to-do members of the business community, to people forbidden from working, owning property, being citizens of their own land. You know what’s coming, but it never feels predictable, only powerful.
I’m fascinated by how a master playwright can take aspects of a show that would otherwise be somewhat trying and make it wonderful. The broken cup coming on the night of broken glass felt poetic and not at all transparent. There’s a lot of speechifying in this show, the sort where I’d often be like ‘ALRIGHT WRAP IT UP CUBA’ and think about how much more effective and efficient it would have been to express those ideas shared through dialogue or action. But the long monologues, especially between the two brothers in the first scene on what it means to be Jewish and never be able to stop being it, I found riveting. Despite several long speeches, breadth of characters instead of depth, and the overall feeling of impending doom, I never felt antsy (nor did I consider how I would fix this show, which as you know is one of my main hobbies).
As usual with plays of this subject matter, the relevance for society today is pretty overwhelming. It’s an important, powerful play that’s aware of its importance without being obvious about it. There’s so much for audiences to learn from it, especially London audiences (including one lesson from Fritz, an asshole for sure, as I wish more anti-Semites would take their lead from him and refuse to fight Jews. I mean that would help a lot of American rallies for one thing.)
All my belly-aching about how Jews and Jewishness are treated (spoiler: badly) in London theatre, and Stoppard comes along with a play doing everything right. Patrick Marber’s direction is great (jew!), Tom’s son Ed is acting in it (jew!), and not to assume things but at least some of the many Jewish-sounding names in the cast have to pan out (jews!). Aside from sobbing at the end so hard that I had literally yoga breathe to not make squeaky noises in the silent theatre, I left feeling pleased with what this powerful show does to improve London’s track record in this regard.
INFORMATION
The show is 2 ½ hours. Act I ended at 20:30 on the dot, so it’s a rare occurrence of a second act being longer but the play still being good.
We sat for the first time at Wyndham’s in the stalls boxes – it’s a private box but instead of up the sides of the theatre, it’s behind the last row of the stalls at ground level. None of the ushers seemed to know how to get to it (it has its own door from outside!) but luckily the house manager who took care of us was amazing. Weird, but we kind of loved it! There’s no one whispering behind you! No one around you bothering the everloving fork out of you! No one in front who you can see trying and failing to sneakily use their phones on their laps (although the people in front of us were full on Seinfeld-at-Schindler’s-Listing, which is forking nonsense. you’re at a HOLOCAUST SHOW. have some g-d DECENCY). Anyway would sit again.
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All About Eve: Fasten Your Seatbeats, It’s Going to be a Bumpy Night Because This Show is Terrible
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is All About Eve at London’s Noel Coward Theatre, playing until May 11. Watch the movie instead!
A few years ago, my family gathered together on Christmas morning to do one of our favorite things: watch a new Oscars screener. The movie was ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’, which would kickstart the career of the incredible Oscar Isaac. Because we are movie people – and because we are decent human beings who know how to behave – we watched in silence for about an hour. But at that point, my sister-in-law broke the silence and asked the room, to hilarious effect, “So, this is terrible, right?” It didn’t matter that some disagreed; for me that line was better than the movie and one of the funniest moments ever. If I were willing to talk in the theatre, I would have quoted her recently when I saw the new production of All About Eve at London’s Noel Coward Theatre. After the sheen of seeing its famous stars wore off, it was absolute torture to sit through, and it took all my might not to say to my husband, “So, this is terrible, right?
As you probably know, the movie “All About Eve” is a classic Best Picture winner about two headstrong actresses, one an established Broadway star and one yoot trying to take her place. It’s been a minute since I’ve seen the movie, but I remember that, although the two women were devious (one more than the other) and determined and like not great people, they weren’t fully out of their minds batshit crazy. ENTER: Ivo van Hove, London’s favorite theatre director who is known for his visually striking takes on reworking classics but who is arguably a misogynist. What a perfect show for Ivo to destroy so he can continue showing off his hatred of women while also displaying his love of stark staging and cold projections! Instead of the actresses being strong women, one of whom is determined to a fault and kind of scary, both are now outrageous lunatics who may as well be clawing at each other the entire time and screaming like babies and tearing each other’s hair out while Ivo sits in a chair offstage smoking a cigar and muttering ‘yes this is women.’
What makes it all worse is that it stars the great Gillian Anderson as Margo Channing, the big Broadway star, and the world’s new favorite blonde Lily James as Eve Harrington, the young upstart. These are two huge actresses right now and this classic work with the two of them? it should be EPIC in its greatness, not in its failure. To make matters worse, because this stars these two giant celebrities, tickets are astronomically expensive. So we paid more than we have paid for any other tickets in the past six or so months to see this steaming pile of dog shit, except worse than that because at least a pile of dog shit necessitates a doggo being nearby. There were no dogs!
So, let’s do a quick plot overview. Margo Channing (Anderson) is a Broadway star, currently in a play written by her friend Lloyd, who is married to her friend Karen, both of whom are cast so strangely that there is no forking way they would be married in real life. After the performance one evening, Karen brings a young woman, Eve (James), who was waiting for Margo at stage door into Margo’s dressing room. PROBLEM #1: Who in tarnation lets a random fan come backstage to meet the actress? As someone who stagedoored mm let’s just say a lot, I can tell you right now, that shit does not and SHOULD NOT happen. So, right off the bat we got some bullshit. To increase the crazy quotient, Margo hires Eve to work as her assistant, which also means living with her. Cool guys, yeah, this is a thing, I am also Lin-Manuel’s personal assistant and I live with Kelli O’Hara, this is the result of stagedooring.
So Eve ingratiates herself into Margo’s life but Margo starts to distrust her, which she should have done when she first met her, but she was too busy worrying about being old. Her main character trait is being insecure about her age because she is over 40 (gasp!) and her boyfriend, Bill, is younger, so to make her feel better, Bill says to Margo “You’re not old! You’re young! You’re six!” which is DISGUSTING ughhh men are gross. We see her birthday party happen pretty much in real time, and it’s a bad party, and everyone is in the kitchen, which is hidden from our view, so it’s worse than your average shitty party. I can’t believe this show. Eve weasels her way in more and more and somehow becomes Margo’s understudy in the current play, which is definitely what happens when you stage-door stalk celebrities, you get cast in the Broadway play mm hmm sure sure, I am a multi-Tony winner yes. And here is my biggest problem with this story: Everyone says that Eve is utterly fantastic at her first reading, so we know that she is actually a great actress. Meaning, she doesn’t have to scheme anymore. The most powerful people in the theatre now know that she is excellent and are ready to hire her…so…that’s that then, right guys? I don’t understand why there can’t be two great actresses in NYC in this universe. They know there are like, lots of them, right? WHY CAN’T THERE BE TWO? Everything after Eve gets hired has zero force because there’s literally zero reason for her to continue being a crazy beeyotch. Things are slow and boring for a while and then boom, out of nowhere the whole ending is so nonsensical it actually hurts. The playwright was going to leave his wife for Eve? Since when? Since they met like the day before and talked once? Eve was gonna just put up with Addison forever and let him blackmail her? She could have easily gotten her good review out of him and then told him to fork off. I don’t get her being submissive after all she has done. And the whole tidy wrap up with another girl in Eve’s room wanting to be like her to show that what, women operate in a cycle of trickery and dominance? Physical pain.
Is the writing or the direction worse? Ivo tried to be clever but everything looked messy and busy. It was like Ivo thought up a hundred new tricks and instead of picking one or two to focus on, he threw them all in and hoped for the best. There was creepy music vamping the entire time that became excessive and annoying. There were long pauses that were supposed to be dramatic but were mostly frustrating. If they cut half of those long pauses, it would have been a 90 minute show. Most of all, the whole movie-camera concept was ill-conceived. If we wanted to see this story presented more like a movie, we would have watched the damn movie, Ivo, and we would have loved it and we would have saved hundreds of dollars and we would not have gotten AGITA from all the ANGER. There were literally cameramen with working cameras following the actors around, and their filming was projected onto the back wall for us to watch live. Sometimes important action was happening out of our view, like in the kitchen (the birthday party scene) or the bathroom (literally the climax of the show) and the only way the audience saw this, this important action, was because the cameraman was filming and we watched the projection. WHO STAGES THE MOST CLIMACTIC SCENES OF A PLAY OFFSTAGE. I mean, I get that you are going for some sort of expose vibe but this isn’t a FORKING MOVIE, IVO. If you want to direct a movie I’m sure someone would hire you to do that, but don’t take a stage show and try to make it your next film. Ugh the cameras so often settled on empty glasses and dishes and projected those for us to stare at and it’s like, ‘ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY SOMETHING DEEP, BECAUSE WE ARE JUST LOOKING AT GLASSES.’
But then the writing was so cringeworthy that with literally every other line, my husband and I were kicking each other. They owe me new stockings because of how bad this writing was! Not one line of honest or realistic dialogue is in the whole thing. There was a line about how every ticket holder to a play would ask for refunds if an understudy was on – this in a city (London) where they famously DON’T GIVE REFUNDS IF AN UNDERSTUDY IS ON! Don’t get me started about how shitty a policy that bullshit is, especially for a show like this when there is a 1000% price increase for these big stars.
I wish I could say that if they had a different director take this in a different direction, it would have been good. But nothing happening on that stage was salvageable. Gillian, who is often superb onstage, is not superb here. She spoke in a low gravely monotone that seemed bored and kept us from connecting. At least she still has a strong stage presence and is usually great. Lily, on the other hand, should not be a stage actress. Her climactic screaming breakdown evoked no emotions other than fremdschamen. She is winning onscreen but is simply not meant for the stage.
There is one trick that Ivo employed that works: when Margo stares at herself in the mirror (projected to us, naturally) and slowly sees herself morph into an old lady. That was cool. You know what wasn’t cool? Having the cameraman film Margo throwing up in the bathroom after drinking too much. That was not cool. I am so tired of Ivo’s misogyny. He made these two women into painful caricatures where they were once interesting women, flawed but recognizable as humans. This is more like cartoon version of what MRA men like to joke about women being like.
To add insult to injury, it is two hours long – WITHOUT AN INTERVAL. Most normal shows do an hour for Act 1, 20 minute intermission, and an hour for Act 2, but this one just skips the interval. It could be to preserve this utterly silly movie vibe, but I would bet you a million dollars that they did it because they knew people would skip out on the second half. Halfway through, there is even a very clear change in vibe that screams out to be the act break, and would have been a good one, but they simply pause and then KEEP TORTURING YOU while you now also have to pee. FIE. FIE UPON HOVE (also the name of a town in England, I’m guessing).
INFORMATION
All About Eve is playing at the Noel Coward Theatre until May 11. Programmes were £4.50, 50p less than normal because I bet the programme sellers felt bad about all the money everyone’s spending to see this monstrosity. In contrast to my usual thinking, I recommend the dress circle in this theatre and not the stalls, because the stalls are below ground level and they don’t let you leave through the main doors at the end so you have to exit onto the street which is some bullshit.
I did not try to stage door – what was I gonna say, “hey you were really great in ‘Mamma Mia 2’ but not this”?? – so I can’t say if they come out or not but like do you care, don’t see this, it’s bad.
Twelfth Night at the Young Vic: Shakespeare Gets the Modern Musical Treatment
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are talking about ‘Twelfth Night’, the new musical version at the Young Vic in London
Two years ago, everyone in the know in New York was raving about this exciting new production at the Public Theatre. It was a fast-paced, rollicking rendition of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, a play we all thought we knew every possible version of yet were seeing in a new light – as a hip musical. (If you use the word hip are you automatically not hip?) I was sorry to have missed that original run, but luckily the production has come to London’s Young Vic to stir things up. With original director Kwame Kwei Armah on board alongside the Public’s Oskar Eustis, this version of Twelfth Night is a short and sweet modern musical with rocking original songs by Shaina Taub. Although the overeager chopping actually cut too much of the story, the overall concept successfully makes a familiar play feel new again.
Two years ago, everyone in the know in New York was raving about this exciting new production at the Public Theatre. It was a fast-paced, rollicking rendition of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, a play we all thought we knew every possible version of yet were seeing in a new light – as a hip musical. (If you use the word hip are you automatically not hip?) I was sorry to have missed that original run, but luckily the production has come to London’s Young Vic to stir things up. With original director Kwame Kwei Armah on board alongside the Public’s Oskar Eustis, this version of Twelfth Night is a short and sweet modern musical with rocking original songs by Shaina Taub. Although the overeager chopping actually cut too much of the story, the overall concept successfully makes a familiar play feel new again.
Twelfth Night tells the story of twins separated after a shipwreck who believe the other has died. Viola, the girl, makes her way to the shores of Ilyria, a colorful city that here looks like if Lin-Manuel’s ‘In the Heights’ had the upstage space to create more storefronts besides the bodega. She disguises herself as a boy in order to work for Duke Orsino. She does this by donning a suit and taking off her wig and calling herself Cesario. The prettyboy Duke is like sooo in looove with Olivia, a wealthy countess who is mourning the death of her father and brother and so refuses to be courted or like go out to parties and meet dukes. Lovesick, the Duke orders his new boy, Cesario, to go to Olivia and profess the Duke’s love for her on his behalf and try to get her to see him because he sooo lurves her even though someone who *actually* loved someone would maybe be respectful of the fact that they were in mourning and maybe wait to try to get in their pants after some time had passed, but what do I know, I’m not a duke. As all such great (so great) plans are wont to do, this plan goes bananers because instead of listening to Cesario’s words about the Duke and falling in love with the absent third party (because that’s how that happens), Olivia falls in love with Cesario, the person who is actually there in person talking so like DUH. But Cesario’s a girl Cesario’s a girl! Dramaaaz. It would be cool to see a retelling where they let them be lesbians.
The Duke (Rupert Young) and Viola/Cesario (Gabrielle Brooks) have some of the most compelling, watchable scenes, but too much of the buildup of their story has been cut. She starts working for the Duke and like immediately falls in love with him? Sure he’s handsome but it’s hard to buy without proper time devoted to their story. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVES me a 90-minute show, but for such a classic like Twelfth Night – and for such an intriguing, provocative take on it – it deserves more time. Because, while more time and scenes would help the story that’s there, the scenes that are there are pretty strong. All of our leads find really hilarious comic moments in the seemingly nothingest of moments, elevating the production with every little laugh. Brooks has a voice, and even though her final scenes seemed all the same level of smiling-so-I’m-happy acting, it was nice to have a leading lady who could really sing. Natalie Dew (from the ‘Bend it Like Beckham’ musical, poor girl) has the impossible task of following the last Olivia I saw – Mark Rylance, who won another Tony for his work as the much-sought after lady of Ilyria. He really found humor in the dullest bits of the script (“What is your parentage?! Ugh!” was reason enough for him to win). While this Olivia wasn’t quite a laugh-riot, she did a very nice job.
Surprisingly, I thought one of the most riveting performances was that of Feste, the fool, who kind of acts as a narrator in this production. Surprising, because I never thought much of Feste before. But here the character is kind of the string holding the show together, and so interesting that I want to reread the play and see what I was missing. As played by Melissa Allan, Feste is a recognizable girl from the East London club scene (I would know), with leather pants and a cut-out top, down on her luck and keeping an observant eye on the fortunes of those around her. And fork me, Allan can SANG. Not just sing, but SANG. It helps that she gets the best song of the production – “Is This Not Love”, a song I can’t wait to download and play all the time and sing in the shower until my neighbors call the cops and I can be like “joke’s on you I’m not breaking any laws!”
We get a shitload of time devoted to Malvolio (Gerard Carey), Olivia’s steward. Even though Carey gives a fantastic performance and his were the comic best moments (how he made an entire audience cry laughing just by turning around on a segway is a feat), the unmatched attention made him seem like the lead character, and, as a result, didn’t allow for enough heft to be given to Orsino and Viola/Cesario’s relationship. Also, this brought too much attention to the worst part about Twelfth Night – the Malvolio/Toby Belch/Maria subplot. In this supposedly ‘comic’ subplot, Sir Toby Belch and Maria (the uncle and maidservant of Olivia, respectively) trick Malvolio into believing that Olivia is in love with him, by having Maria write a fake letter in Olivia’s handwriting. The letter contains declarations of love for a certain man that is undeniably Malvolio, as well as the notorious request for him to dress in ‘yellow stockings cross-gartered’ so he looks silly. And, as punishment, Toby and Maria…get married. I mean. It’s THE WORST. They deserve to DIE. Probably my most hated Shakespeare story. Sure, Malvolio is kind of a prick but he’s nothing compared to these two absolute wankers who take someone’s sanity and use it as a plaything. In this rendition, sadly, full weight is given to this subplot, so it takes over. And, sadder, they don’t do anything to fix how horrible it is. In fact, it’s clearer that Malvolio loses his mind and is taken away to an asylum! I want the version of Twelfth Night that sees Toby and Maria punished and banished from Ilyria, for a start. And while Carey’s “Count Malvolio” is a superb number (a perfect musical comedy song, too; Taub knows what she is doing for the genre), it doesn’t need two reprises.
It’s a little odd that the story is put in a modern setting – Ilyria is a regular, diverse city – yet has a duke and counts and countesses. As such, the modern setting and clothes and language feel a little off. Either a full commitment to modernity (i.e. getting rid of the nobility and having them be different kinds of upper class) or a fully realized traditional production just with modern music would have been more overall convincing.
As for the real boy twin, Sebastian (Jyuddah Jaymes), he is saved by a sea captain named Antonio (Jonathan Livingstone), who here looks like straight outta wartime. Antonio saves and helps Sebastian get back on his feet because of his ‘affection’ for him, which is never really explained. Here, Antonio gets to profess his feelings for Sebastian through song, and it works to make it clear that Antonio is in love with Sebastian, but the brevity of every section of the story means that it kind of comes out of nowhere, and it doesn’t go anywhere. And we don’t get a satisfying reunion of the two friends after all the twin-caused confusion in the final act. I would like to see a version where Antonio gets the boy. I already said something about Olivia and Viola being lovers, didn’t I? I guess I want someone to change the ending and do a full-on LGBTQ version.
But that’s besides the point! As is, the fact that I wish this was a full two-act work speaks volumes for how much fun I had. It’s not perfect, and I do (obviously) have a lot of criticisms, but mostly I had a forking blast. It may be a lightweight version, and only 90 minutes, but each minute was full of new life given to this old play. The talented cast and this vibrant, often electrifying production is not to be missed. And some of the music is magnificent. I can’t wait to see what Taub does next.
INFORMATION
Twelfth Night is at the Young Vic until November 17.
If you can’t get to London to see it, you can download the album (vocals by Shaina Taub) here and apparently it’s a ‘name your own price’ jawn! Amazing! Off to listen to “Is This Not Love” a million times. Oh and “If You Were My Beloved”!!
The Duke (Rupert Young) and Viola/Cesario (Gabrielle Brooks) have some of the most compelling, watchable scenes, but too much of the buildup of their story has been cut. She starts working for the Duke and like immediately falls in love with him? Sure he’s handsome but it’s hard to buy without proper time devoted to their story. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVES me a 90-minute show, but for such a classic like Twelfth Night – and for such an intriguing, provocative take on it – it deserves more time. Because, while more time and scenes would help the story that’s there, the scenes that are there are pretty strong. All of our leads find really hilarious comic moments in the seemingly nothingest of moments, elevating the production with every little laugh. Brooks has a voice, and even though her final scenes seemed all the same level of smiling-so-I’m-happy acting, it was nice to have a leading lady who could really sing. Natalie Dew (from the ‘Bend it Like Beckham’ musical, poor girl) has the impossible task of following the last Olivia I saw – Mark Rylance, who won another Tony for his work as the much-sought after lady of Ilyria. He really found humor in the dullest bits of the script (“What is your parentage?! Ugh!” was reason enough for him to win). While this Olivia wasn’t quite a laugh-riot, she did a very nice job.
Surprisingly, I thought one of the most riveting performances was that of Feste, the fool, who kind of acts as a narrator in this production. Surprising, because I never thought much of Feste before. But here the character is kind of the string holding the show together, and so interesting that I want to reread the play and see what I was missing. As played by Melissa Allan, Feste is a recognizable girl from the East London club scene (I would know), with leather pants and a cut-out top, down on her luck and keeping an observant eye on the fortunes of those around her. And fork me, Allan can SANG. Not just sing, but SANG. It helps that she gets the best song of the production – “Is This Not Love”, a song I can’t wait to download and play all the time and sing in the shower until my neighbors call the cops and I can be like “joke’s on you I’m not breaking any laws!”
We get a shitload of time devoted to Malvolio (Gerard Carey), Olivia’s steward. Even though Carey gives a fantastic performance and his were the comic best moments (how he made an entire audience cry laughing just by turning around on a segway is a feat), the unmatched attention made him seem like the lead character, and, as a result, didn’t allow for enough heft to be given to Orsino and Viola/Cesario’s relationship. Also, this brought too much attention to the worst part about Twelfth Night – the Malvolio/Toby Belch/Maria subplot. In this supposedly ‘comic’ subplot, Sir Toby Belch and Maria (the uncle and maidservant of Olivia, respectively) trick Malvolio into believing that Olivia is in love with him, by having Maria write a fake letter in Olivia’s handwriting. The letter contains declarations of love for a certain man that is undeniably Malvolio, as well as the notorious request for him to dress in ‘yellow stockings cross-gartered’ so he looks silly. And, as punishment, Toby and Maria…get married. I mean. It’s THE WORST. They deserve to DIE. Probably my most hated Shakespeare story. Sure, Malvolio is kind of a prick but he’s nothing compared to these two absolute wankers who take someone’s sanity and use it as a plaything. In this rendition, sadly, full weight is given to this subplot, so it takes over. And, sadder, they don’t do anything to fix how horrible it is. In fact, it’s clearer that Malvolio loses his mind and is taken away to an asylum! I want the version of Twelfth Night that sees Toby and Maria punished and banished from Ilyria, for a start. And while Carey’s “Count Malvolio” is a superb number (a perfect musical comedy song, too; Taub knows what she is doing for the genre), it doesn’t need two reprises.
It’s a little odd that the story is put in a modern setting – Ilyria is a regular, diverse city – yet has a duke and counts and countesses. As such, the modern setting and clothes and language feel a little off. Either a full commitment to modernity (i.e. getting rid of the nobility and having them be different kinds of upper class) or a fully realized traditional production just with modern music would have been more overall convincing.
As for the real boy twin, Sebastian (Jyuddah Jaymes), he is saved by a sea captain named Antonio (Jonathan Livingstone), who here looks like straight outta wartime. Antonio saves and helps Sebastian get back on his feet because of his ‘affection’ for him, which is never really explained. Here, Antonio gets to profess his feelings for Sebastian through song, and it works to make it clear that Antonio is in love with Sebastian, but the brevity of every section of the story means that it kind of comes out of nowhere, and it doesn’t go anywhere. And we don’t get a satisfying reunion of the two friends after all the twin-caused confusion in the final act. I would like to see a version where Antonio gets the boy. I already said something about Olivia and Viola being lovers, didn’t I? I guess I want someone to change the ending and do a full-on LGBTQ version.
But that’s besides the point! As is, the fact that I wish this was a full two-act work speaks volumes for how much fun I had. It’s not perfect, and I do (obviously) have a lot of criticisms, but mostly I had a forking blast. It may be a lightweight version, and only 90 minutes, but each minute was full of new life given to this old play. The talented cast and this vibrant, often electrifying production is not to be missed. And some of the music is magnificent. I can’t wait to see what Taub does next.
INFORMATION
Twelfth Night is at the Young Vic until November 17.
If you can’t get to London to see it, you can download the album (vocals by Shaina Taub) here and apparently it’s a ‘name your own price’ jawn! Amazing! Off to listen to “Is This Not Love” a million times. Oh and “If You Were My Beloved”!!
