Reviews NYCOff-Broadway Published 18 April 2015

Twelfth Night, or What you Will, What you Will or Twelfth Night

Dorothy Strelsin Theatre

Opposites attract.

Patrick Maley

With its repertory production of two versions of Twelfth Night, Bedlam adds Shakespeare’s beloved and oft-produced comedy to its impressive array of smart, nuanced, and fun re-imaginings of classical theater. As they have done in the past with such theatrical monuments as Hamlet and Saint Joan, Bedlam’s deft troupe of versatile actors mines the depths of Twelfth Night’s script to bring fresh insights on the characters, themes, and play we seem to know so well. Both productions are a joy of innovation and energy: Bedlam at its creative best.

Riffing on Shakespeare’s full title, Bedlam calls one of their productions Twelfth Night, or What you Will and the other What you Will, or Twelfth Night. Except for the shared script, neither bares any resemblance to the other.

Twelfth Night is as loose and jangly as the live folk music that scores the production. The actors in street clothes mingle with the small audience for several minutes before Tom O’Keefe calls the proceedings to order with his acoustic guitar and somber-sweet melody. The performers fall neatly and naturally into their various roles: Andrus Nichols as Orsino and later Maria; Eric Tucker as Viola and later Toby Belch; Edmund Lewis, Susannah Millonzi, and O’Keefe themselves in a variety of roles. As we have seen with Bedlam in the past, this precarious role doubling and trebling succeeds smoothly by each performer dedicating him or herself fully to the character of the moment. A prop like a hat or a pair of glasses, or a physical trait like an accent or gait signals each character, but mostly the characters exist as fully realized in each moment. This Twelfth Night is full of the play’s traditional whimsy, augmented by Bedlam’s traditional playfulness. Hats and glasses are tossed around, Shakespeare’s lines are lovingly mocked, and puppets make a dramatic and hilarious appearance. It is a production that feels like expert actors having a blast bandying about a play they know only too well.

What you Will, or Twelfth Night is another matter entirely. Gone are the jaunty folk guitar and comfortable street clothes, replaced by a steady diet of Billie Holiday records and neatly appointed costumes in a stark off-white palate. If Twelfth Night is a playful take on a classic, What you Will is a magnificently bold reinterpretation: the Bedlam treatment taken to new and exciting heights. The characters in What you Will are more removed and aloof than those in Twelfth Night; the world of this play is distant, dark, and mysterious. If we feel part of the party in Twelfth Night, the What you Will version casts its audience as alienated observers of a strange world where people are oppressed by their desires for love and power. Over the course of the performance, more and more red paint will come to speckle and stain the white costumes, until it becomes clear how much blood must be spilt by these characters in pursuit of their all-consuming desires. Dark takes on Shakespeare’s comedies are nothing new, but the darkness of this excellent production forces a reevaluation of the characters and their investments, giving us Shakespeare’s characters with their masks of civility removed.

Directed by Tucker, both productions move like expertly choreographed ballets in their tiny performance space, and both succeed in offering a clear vision of Shakespeare’s comedy. That vision is just vastly and impressively different from night to night. Each of these productions is a treat on its own, but to have both is a treasure.


Patrick Maley

Patrick Maley, PhD is a student at Seton Hall University School of Law and author of After August: Blues, August Wilson, and American Drama (University of Virginia Press, 2019). His work also appears in Modern Drama, Theatre Journal, Comparative Drama, Field Day Review, Eugene O'Neill Review, Irish Studies Review, and New Hibernia Review. He also reviews theater regularly for The Star-Ledger and NJ.com.

Twelfth Night, or What you Will, What you Will or Twelfth Night Show Info


Directed by Eric Tucker

Written by William Shakespeare

Cast includes Edmund Lewis, Susannah Millonzi, Andrus Nichols, Tom O’Keefe, Eric Tucker

Running Time 2 hours (with one intermission)


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