[In the following excerpted review of the 2002 Donmar Warehouse Theatre staging of Twelfth Night directed by Sam Mendes, Mullan contends that an overemphasis on the erotic and sensual aspects of the drama, as well as on the suffering of Malvolio, obscured its comic elements and proved detrimental to the production.]

We owe to the memoranda book of law student John Manningham our knowledge that Twelfth Night was written just before or just after Hamlet. Manningham records seeing it early in 1602, though until his diary was unearthed in the nineteenth century it was commonly supposed that this romantic comedy of loss redeemed by kind tempests was late Shakespeare. With the confidence of documentary evidence, we now see how close it is to that tragedy of forbidden mourning. Like Hamlet, it opens after a death, and asks how long someone need mourn. Hamlet is told by his mother that, after two months, he has worn his “nighted colour” long enough. In Twelfth Night, Olivia has sworn to devote herself to the “sad remembrance” of her dead brother for seven years, daily watering her chamber “with eye-offending brine”. Manningham described Olivia as a “lady widow”, a mistake that evidences the excess of her grieving. The boy playing her in 1602 must have been veiled and dressed in black, as actresses have been ever since, and the watching student naturally thought her suspended from life by her devotion to the memory of a dead husband. …

… Sam Mendes's already garlanded new production of Twelfth Night … [begins] by inviting us to disbelieve those who mourn. Characters in inky garb are protesting too much. Mendes has Orsino (a gloomy, angry Mark Strong) and his attendants wearing black, in would-be sympathy with the woman the Duke so self-indulgently “loves”. Yet we soon realize that Helen McCrory's Olivia is quite ready for something better than doleful seclusion and can scarcely conceal her kittenish inclinations. She smirks under her veil at Feste's sallies and the tone of her “What kind o' man is he?”, when informed that “Cesario” will not depart without seeing her, tells us that she is no natural “cloistress”. …

[This] Twelfth Night … puts its faith in sexual allure. Helen McCrory's Olivia is a chuckling temptress. The director has surely gone awry here. As Olivia strives to warm “Cesario”, she discards her black robe to reveal a transparent black negligée. Viola's “I pity you” takes on just the wrong implications. Later, Olivia takes Sebastian (Gyuri Sárossy) straight to bed (as she does in the Barnaby Riche tale which Shakespeare transformed into his play). In case we did not follow McCrory's come-hither tone (“would thou'dst be ruled by me”) and Sárossy's laddish alacrity (“Madam, I will”), the two emerge, deshabillés, a couple of scenes later. Sebastian's strange readiness to become betrothed to a woman he has just met is explained away as post-coital euphoria. His lines about it being “wonder that enwraps me thus, / Yet 'is not madness” duly got a laugh.

“Wonder” is just what the erotic theory loses. In that extraordinary interim where the twins finally find themselves on the stage together, and their presence works its amazement on the other witnessing characters, Olivia exclaims “Most wonderful!” McCrory produced a feline growl of relish, as if contemplating double helpings of the sensual delights that she had so recently enjoyed. Again, everyone laughed, and the moment was lost. The erotic element was emphasized by physical contact. There is a great deal of touching for a play whose two figures of authority, Orsino and Olivia, are supposed to command conventional respect. Sometimes this works, as when Emily Watson's Viola unconsciously takes Orsino's hand while they listen to Feste sing, only for both to pull back a moment later. Elsewhere it is distracting. After “Cesario” has captivated him with her tale of her father's daughter's concealed love, Orsino seizes his “page” and kisses him/her passionately. This has happened before in productions of the play, but always risks undoing the perplexing growth of feeling in Orsino. “O learn to read what silent love hath writ” was the line from Sonnet 23 projected on to the back of the set as we took our seats. Orsino must find love where it is not expected (and banish the self-regarding amorousness that he has been displaying before). Here, his physical demonstrativeness substitutes for emotional change.

Yet there are successes. The most striking aspect of the staging is the huge picture frame through which characters sometimes enter or depart, and in which they sometimes remain while the action proceeds. Without being reductive, it catches the sense of characters being preoccupied, foolishly or touchingly, by those who are not present. It also allows Mendes to keep Malvolio, blindfolded and straitjacketed, “in frame” all the while that the lovers are luckily finding their mates. Indeed, rather against the grain of stage directions, Malvolio is with us throughout his scenes of confinement. The Folio text specifies “Malvolio within”, suggesting that he remains concealed as he is tormented by Feste/Sir Topaz. Here, he is entirely visible, preyed on for our discomfiting entertainment. The impression is strengthened by the playing of Sir Toby Belch (Paul Jesson) as a would-be tormentor throughout. His final contemptuous rejection of a weary Sir Andrew (David Bradley) is but the confirmation of what is apparent all along. In this production, Malvolio's suffering is maximized (though it cannot be appropriate to have Olivia actually strike him when he makes those absurd advances to her). In large measure this is made persuasive by Simon Russell-Beale's poignant performance. His self-importance is richly ridiculous—a little camp and very tender of his dignity—yet it always suggests a kind of torment, finally revealed. …

Mendes's Twelfth Night seems not quite able to trust the madness wrought by love and self-love in the comedy. Confidently performed, eloquently spoken, and accompanied by George Stiles's subtle music and song settings, it leaves you entertained, but moved only by that foolish steward's inevitable humiliation.