In the world of the cinema, the pundits are fond of telling us, a technical advance has usually been accompanied by a backslide in imagination and intelligence. I hope it won't turn out to be true of the theatre as well.

Last Tuesday's Twelfth Night (Stratford on Avon: director, Peter Hall) was a perfect example of how a Shakespeare play can be ripped apart by the twin steel claws of naturalism and gimmickry. The basic assumption of the modern Shakespearean theatre ("We've got to put on this dull stuff, which most people—ourselves included—find only half-intelligible; so let's see how we can import some fun into it") was evident from the first moment.

It isn't the actors' fault; that should be said at once. They all played quite brilliantly, and the packed audience seemed as delighted by their virtuosity as by the sumptuous staging and handsome scene-painting. Mr. Richard Johnson's Aguecheek was one of the cleverest studies I have ever seen; he turned the character into a paranoid manic-depressive, strongly reminiscent at times of Lucky in Waiting for Godot. His interpretation was a splendidly original play-within-the-play, besides making the perfect foil to Mr. Patrick Wymark's Sir Toby—a more robustly conventional interpretation, this, meaty and zestful.

Even those performances which most set one's teeth on edge were, as acting, very intelligent; in any other setting—as a series of revue turns, for instance—they would have been most enjoyable. Miss Geraldine McEwan's Olivia, played as a kittenish typist on holiday from a City office, was a charming study; it isn't her fault that Shakespeare made Olivia a countess, full of authority and aristocratic hauteur. Mr. Hall presumably told her to be coy and simpering, and coy and simpering she was. Just what his motives were in getting her to use her professional skill against the play, rather than for it, must remain his own secret; she did her job.

As for naturalism, it ran riot throughout. Even Miss Dorothy Tutin, whose instinctive grace and intelligence protected her, for the most part, against the over-literalness of the production, was side-tracked into playing the first of the scenes in which Viola acts as emissary to Olivia as if it had been written by Tennessee Williams. It was fascinating; but the scene would have made its own impact if it had been spoken quite simply—and that impact would have been Shakespeare's. And if the all-pervading naturalism handicapped even Miss Tutin, what it did to the scenes in which she did not take part is simply indescribable. Malvolio in his dungeon was allowed to give us ten minutes of pure tragedy, complete with hysterical laughter, anguished groaning and broken appeals for pity.

Feste, singing his final song, had to break down and sob in case anyone had missed the point that his character was meant to be rather sombre. When Sir Andrew offered to give Cesario his horse. I half expected to see a real one trot on to the stage.

It remains only to say that the audience showed every sign of being pleased; the applause was thunderous, the curtain-calls infinite; this production, clearly, will be a money-spinner. But does Stratford need to compete on this level? The next morning, the sky was pale blue, the sun warmed every stone, the town seemed one enchanting garden, the swans floated on the river, the beer flowed in the pubs—and it was Shakespeare's birthday. Wouldn't people (I mused) still come here even if they had to watch the plays put on quite straight?