Twelfth Night (Vol. 26) | Reviews And Retrospective Accounts Of Selected Productions
REVIEWS AND RETROSPECTIVE ACCOUNTS OF SELECTED PRODUCTIONS
PRODUCTION:
Henry Irving • Lyceum Theatre • 1884
BACKGROUND:
One of the most visually stunning renderings of the play in the nineteenth century, Irving's Twelfth Night was shorn of the text's music and songs but embellished with lavish scenery comprised of sixteen different sets. Irving himself played the part of Malvolio, who became the drama's focus, and eschewed a comic approach to the character, highlighting the steward's tragic nuances instead. Irving was dressed as a Spanish Golden Age figure reminiscent of Don Quixote, and rendered the scene in the "dark house" (Act IV) in what William Archer described as a "nerveless state of prostrate dejection." Frank Benson commented that Irving's conception of the role compromised the casting of the other performances: "the ladies were too mature and, what was equally disastrous, the comedians were not funny; the sprightly...
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