Twelfth Night – a.k.a. Twelfth Night: Or What You Will

Comedy (Sir Andrew Augecheek)

What a darkly seductive Twelfth Night Trevor Nunn has made, full of beauty and surprise. His glowing “Illyria” has a real, not a fairy-tale, feeling; there is the sense of real danger, real loss, real heartache to even its most preposterous excesses. And of course, because it’s Nunn, head of the Royal Shakespeare Company for so long, the lines have snap and savor and a blessed clarity. The first surprise is the age of his headstrong romantics, his muddled women who fall for other women in men’s disguise; his men who don’t notice that the guy they’ve been hanging out with is really a girl. He’s made them barely out of their teens, lovers-in-innocence, very young and very toothsome.

REG has a small part as the befuddled Sir Andrew Augecheek who is in love with the very beautiful Olivia, played by Helena Bonham Carter.

Read a lengthy article about the film if you like. Here’s Georgia’s rundown of the film.

Brother and sister Viola and Sebastian, who are not only very close but look a great deal alike, are in a shipwreck, and both think the other dead. When she lands in a foreign country, Viola dresses as her brother and adopts the name Cesario, becoming a trusted friend and confidante to the Count Orsino.

Orsino is madly in love with the lady Olivia, who is in mourning due to her brother’s recent death, which she uses as an excuse to avoid seeing the count, whom she does not love. He sends Cesario to do his wooing, and Olivia falls in love with the disguised maiden. Things get more complicated in this bittersweet Shakespeare comedy when a moronic nobleman, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and a self-important servant, Malvolio, get caught up in the schemes of Olivia’s cousin, the obese, alcoholic Sir Toby, who leads each to believe Olivia loves him. As well, Sebastian surfaces in the area, and of course there is Feste, the wise fool, around to keep everything in perspective and to marvel, like we the audience, at the amazing things happening all around.

Best REG line: “I can’t tell you what the play is about; you’ll have to ask some of the intelligent actors”