SSC: Twelfth Night and Electra

Posted on Jan 23, 2010 in Films/Theatre | 1 comment

Do you enjoy a peanut-butter and pesto sandwich? How about an ice-cream sundae covered in vindaloo? Ever seen a hilarious Shakespearean comedy followed by a dark and murderous Greek tragedy? That was our experience (the plays, not the strange food combinations) in Dec. and Jan. as we attended the first two entries in the Seattle Shakespeare’s Company’s 09-10 season: Twelfth Night and Electra.

The two plays could not have been more different, but I’ll start by mentioning how they were the same: professional. If you’ve never been to an SCC performance, you should check one out. The theatre, located in the bottom of the Seattle Center, is intimate and welcoming. The sets are usually sparse but adequate to support the acting, which is always top-notch. My wife and I have been season-ticket holders for four years now and after 14 plays I’ve yet to see an actor trip, appear out-of-character, or miss a line (that I could tell, at least). This troupe is, in one word: excellent.

Other than that, the plays are vastly different. I’ll let Wikipedia detail the plots and characters, but to summarize:

• Twelfth Night is a comedy of mistaken identity, romance, and good ol’ fashioned pranks and revelry. It also contains the famous line “If music be the food of love, play on!”
• Electra is a horrific Greek tragedy (written by Sophocles, not the Bard) revolving around a father whose murder (by an axe!) at the hands of the mother and her lover is brutally avenged by the son, all the while lamented by the daughter, the titular character.

We had a great time at both plays, but for entirely different reasons. The lighthearted, vaguely Christmastime fun of Twelfth Night was played to perfection by SSC’s cast. The character Malvolio was my favorite, both for his snooty disdain for the enjoyment being had by others and for the fool he’s made out to be when tricked into believing his employer loves him. During the pre-play “jumpstart,” we were told about the history of the Elizabethan festival of Twelfth Night, the “Lord of Misrule,” and what aspects of the tale the Bard borrowed in his take on the story. SSC blurred the line between audience and actors with a sing-along in the lobby that lead into the theatre, where the “house rules” (mute your cell phone, no photographs, etc.) were all given in character—a real nice touch.

Electra was the opposite of lighthearted. If I had to pick one word to describe the performance, it would be “agonizing.” The actress playing Electra spent the better part of 90 minutes basically crying, wailing, or whimpering, with a short burst of intense happiness near the middle. This play was out of character (ooh, acting pun!) for Seattle Shakes in that it had no intermission, so there was no break in the intensity of the story or acting. Also unusual: the gore at the end of the play when Orestes and his compatriot murder his mother, Clytemnestra, followed shortly thereafter by her lover-turned-husband Aegisthus. Sure, I knew it was just corn syrup and red dye but man, they weren’t shy about dousing the characters with it.

As an aside, it was quite a treat to see the same actor who played the snooty butler Malvolio in Twelfth Night portray the arrogant, demeaning Aegisthus. I went from despising Aegisthus to almost pitying him as he held his dead wife and watched as her murders circled in on him. But only almost; Aegisthus was reaping what he had sown years earlier. But was his murder at Orestes’ hands justified? That, after all, is the central question in Electra and the whole Orestia trilogy.

It’s too late to catch Twelfth Night, but Electra plays through the end of this month, so you should check it out if agonizing personal tragedies are your thing. If not, wait for The Two Gentlemen of Verona later in the season. If you attend it on Thursday, March 25,  we may just see you there.

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