Twelfth Night

Shakespeare can be hard, as sometimes you feel like you are watching a play in a foreign language but without the subtitles. Twelfth Night, a joint production of ACT Theatre and Seattle Shakespeare Company ahead of their merger, addressed this challenge partially by casting performers highly skilled in physical acting. The result was a very funny and entertaining play, even if you didn’t always follow what was happening.

It has been long enough since I’ve seen this play that I was lost a few times, losing track of the characters, but the experience was still very entertaining. This cast is excellent and oh so funny. When I say these actors had excellent and very funny physical acting, know that my bar is currently high after having just recently watched Tony Award winning performances in New York.

The top notch acting is not the only highlight in this production. The set is beautiful, the costumes are stunning, the lighting is good, and the sound engineering was perfect, which can be rare outside of New York. The subtle use of projections also added to the experience. After a very disappointing recent experience at a national tour production, it was refreshing to see a play that was thoughtful and effective in each of these categories. This play also has some singing, which is always so beautiful at this venue and with ACT’s talent.

The one thing I would change about this production is the run time. Our show was just under 3 hours long, and this is just too long for a comedy with a lighthearted story. For comparison, the popular comedy Oh, Mary! is 1 hour 20 minutes long, Maybe Happy Ending (which arguably has a much deeper story) is 1 hour 40 minutes long, SIX the Musical is 80 minutes long, and The Play That Goes Wrong is about 2 hours long. I am generally ok with current Broadway musicals like Sunset Blvd. and Gypsy having similar run times (they are just slightly shorter), but this show is just longer than I like for a lighthearted comedy. The optimal run time for Twelfth Night, in my opinion, would be about 90 minutes. Laughs in Spanish, a recent comedy performed at Seattle Rep, and POTUS, a comedy at ACT Theatre, were each about 90 minutes long, and this just seemed perfect.

Other than the run time and the typical challenges of Shakespeare, this play was a lot of fun and full of laughs. I can’t emphasize enough how good the acting was in this show. Some of these actors I have seen perform before, and they are at least as good as the actors I see perform on Broadway in New York.

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