Reality shines on dreamy set

Maurice Barnfather

They say there is a perfect “Twelfth Night” laid up for us in heaven.

Until then, we must be satisfied with Kris Tabori’s debut production

for Glendale’s “A Noise Within,” set in the early 19th century and combining a dream-like quality with the rich texture of Chekhovian

emotional reality.

The dream element to this version of Shakespeare’s melancholic

comedy, one of the great romantic love stories of all time, is

heightened by Trefoni Michael Rizzi’s spare, coherent and beautiful

set design. Inside the dream structure, however, Tabori creates a

social reality, highlighting class differences and sexual

ambivalence.

If any idea drives this production, it is the platonic one that we

are all sexually split souls searching for unity. Thus, Olivia, whose

beauty proves as disruptive as Yelena’s in Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,”

lustfully pursues the boy-girl Cesario, while Orsino finds in the boy

a perfect mirror image of himself.

Generally, the comics come off best in this visually and aurally

seductive “Twelfth Night.” Take the servant Malvolio, magnificently

played by Alan Brooks in the manner of an ambitious upstart out of an

Arnold Bennett novel. Having been tricked into believing that Olivia

loves him, he sees marriage to her as a chance to ascend the social

ladder. Malvolio’s flashing of his canary-yellow socks and pelvic

thrusts toward Olivia are very funny, and his final cry of revenge,

implying he’ll be in touch with his lawyers, provokes a guilty

silence.

Robertson Dean impresses as Sir Toby Belch, a snobbish parasite

who treats Sir Andrew Aguecheek, an effete dandy joyously played by

Hamilton Camp, as a source of revenue, humiliation and useful

companionship. And Mark Bramhall is perfect as Feste, a born loner

used to corrupting words to grub a living, and with all the

melancholy of the professional entertainer.

But on the romantic side, while Julia Coffey’s ardent, impassioned

Viola has the right, full-throated ardor, Tessa Thompson is

unconvincing as the upper-class-poised Olivia.

There may have been funnier “Twelfth Nights,” but what makes this

one special is that the comedy arises from the social situation

instead of being imposed upon it.