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COMMENTARY:

Irving Wardle (review date 22 August 1969)

SOURCE: "Twelfth Night as Seen by a Fool," in The Times, London, August 22, 1969, p. 11.

Having shown Troilus and Cressida through the eyes of Thersites, John Barton now gives us Feste's version of Twelfth Night: and again the fool proves himself the best guide to the play.

This is not the funniest or most inventive Twelfth Night I have seen; but I can remember no production that held all the comedy's elements in such harmony. Played amid fragile white properties, against a sombre background, it is in key with Feste's last song: its humour and melancholy both springing from a sense of transcience underscored with music and the sound of the waves that lodged the two castaways on Illyria.

At present some parts of the production are not fully assimilated in the general pattern. Muted though the atmosphere may be, it could stand a less subdued Sir Toby...

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1. Introduction
2. Reviews And Retrospective Accounts Of Selected Productions
3. Production:
4. Background:
5. Commentary:
6. Production:
7. Background:
8. Commentary:
9. Production:
10. Background:
11. Commentary:
12. Production:
13. Background:
14. Commentary:
15. Production:
16. Background:
17. Commentary:
18. Production:
19. Background:
20. Commentary:
21. Production:
22. Comparisons And Overviews
23. Staging Issues
24. Further Reading
25. Copyright