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    Review: In ‘Malvolio,’ Hope (and a Title Role) for a Damaged Heart

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    The Classical Theater of Harlem follows up last year’s winning “Twelfth Night” with a sequel that feels like a sweet summer frolic.Poor old Malvolio. Amid the comic romance of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” he is the imperious steward who gets cruelly pranked for sport, duped by a band of smart alecks who forge a love letter seemingly addressed to him.Believing that the missive is from the countess he adores, and thinking he is following her wishes, he dresses garishly in yellow stockings with cross-garters and behaves as if he’s come unhinged. Then he is locked away in darkness, where his tormentors continue to mess with his mind.It’s a rancid kind of meanness, but the playwright Betty Shamieh has turned it into a hero’s origin story with her clever, winking new play “Malvolio.” And the Classical Theater of Harlem, whose “Twelfth Night” last July was an effervescent delight, has fashioned this sequel into a sweet summer frolic, with the sympathetic Allen Gilmore reprising what is now the title role.Twenty years after the end of “Twelfth Night,” Malvolio is long gone from the island of Illyria. A respected military general in a stubborn war, he is the leader of the Legion of the Cross-Gartered. (Fabulous name, that; fun uniforms, too, by Celeste Jennings.) But his past mistreatment festers in him.“My humiliation made me reckless,” he says. “Reckless men make great soldiers.”The fleet-footed production, featuring a very funny John-Andrew Morrison, center, as a bored king, is now at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park.Richard TermineIn Ian Belknap and Ty Jones’s fleet-footed production at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park, most of the old gang from “Twelfth Night” is still back on Illyria, living not so happily ever after. The marriage of Viola (Perri Gaffney) and Orsino (René Thornton Jr.) totters on despite his infidelity — and his preference for seeing her disguised as a boy, as she was when he fell in love with her.It’s Volina (Kineta Kunutu), their strong-minded daughter, who takes up the mantle of romance and adventure. Betrothed against her wishes to Prince Furtado (J.D. Mollison) — a misogynistic nitwit and sole heir to the uber-bored King Chadlio (John-Andrew Morrison, so funny that you will root for the king to survive various attempts on his life) — Volina slips out of Illyria and meets Malvolio by chance. She falls instantly, persuasively in love with him.Critical of war, skeptical of marriage and astute about the warping effect of defining oneself through trauma, “Malvolio” regards its characters from a distinctly female point of view. Paying close attention to the women, Shamieh has fun with callbacks to assorted Shakespeare plays; Volina’s nurse (Marjorie Johnson) was once Juliet’s.With a color palette that pops, and choreography (by Dell Howlett) that does, too, this is a visually and aurally enticing production. (The set is by Christopher and Justin Swader, lighting by Alan C. Edwards, video by Zavier Augustus Lee Taylor and music by Frederick Kennedy.) If the characters’ tangled relationships are a bit complex for the uninitiated, that’s also true in “Twelfth Night.” The big picture here is perfectly clear.Does Malvolio have enough hope in his damaged heart to risk loving Volina back? Will she even be free to choose him if he does? Well, it is a comedy — with last-minute reveals that are entirely in the spirit of Shakespeare, and utterly charming.It’s free, by the way. Treat yourself.MalvolioThrough July 29 at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park, Manhattan; cthnyc.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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      ‘Twelfth Night’ Review: A Shot of Joy Under a Darkening Sky

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      At an uptown amphitheater, the Classical Theater of Harlem stages Shakespeare’s comedy with fizzy delight.For so many of us, stress roared in and put down roots. The stress of living at perpetual high alert in a world that has seemed, for the past several years, to be in an ever-shifting state of emergency. Amid all that, in the post-shutdown theater, has come a tsunami of shows dedicated to elucidating social ills and processing cultural pain. Such work is vital now and always; don’t get me wrong.But we desperately require its counterweight, too — shows that usher us into alternate worlds where we can give ourselves over to pure delight. The Classical Theater of Harlem gets that, deeply, and proves it with a delectable “Twelfth Night” so fizzy and fun that you may be surprised afterward at how relaxed your body is, and how much lighter your spirit feels.That’s what communal joy can do. Maybe it’s been a while?Hie thee, then, to the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park, where this free, outdoor production directed by Carl Cofield boasts dance as lissome as ever, design that raises the bar on this company’s customary visual wow and a cast whose ease brings a lovely clarity. In Kara Young as Viola, this “Twelfth Night” also has a star as fascinatingly natural in Shakespeare as she has been in any of the contemporary stage roles that have established her as one of New York’s most exciting actors.Washed up on the shore of Illyria, her Viola is immediately surprising — shivery and traumatized, which makes the unseen shipwreck that tore her from her brother, Sebastian, more than a mere plot device to set in motion a rom-com with a mistaken-identity twist. Not that she lingers in her distress; this show gets playful fast. But the emotional stakes are laid, and they will pay off.Needing to survive in this strange country, Viola disguises herself as a young man named Cesario and gets a job working for Orsino (William DeMeritt), a love-struck duke who sends her to plead his amorous case with the countess Olivia (Christina Sajous). The elegant lady spurns Orsino’s messages but is much taken with the messenger, who, in turn, is so smitten with the oblivious duke that she can barely stand to be near him. It’s a triangle of sexual tension, one of romantic comedy’s most deliciously tormented shapes.An intersecting plot involves Shakespeare’s possibly most stellar team of ridiculous idiots: the ever-reveling Sir Toby Belch (Chivas Michael) and his tag-along friend Sir Andrew Aguecheek (an excellently goofy Carson Elrod), who with their raucous compadres stir up trouble for trouble’s sake at Olivia’s house. Their principal target is Olivia’s prim steward, Malvolio (Allen Gilmore), who, despite his name, is not a bad guy, really; he’d just like to get some sleep instead of being kept awake by these cases of arrested development.This beautiful show, at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater, works its magic beneath the summer sky as dusk turns to dark.Richard TermineCofield and his creative team are gorgeously in sync as they fully embrace all comic opportunities — not least a memorably silly sword fight between Viola and Andrew, both of them terrified and armed with quasi-light sabers. (Fight direction is by the father-and-son team Rick Sordelet and Christian Kelly-Sordelet.) There is also the laugh-out-loud tableau of Toby, Andrew and the servant Fabian (Donathan Walters) popping their hatted heads up from their hiding place to watch Malvolio fall into their trap. (Set design is by Riw Rakkulchon, costumes by Mika Eubanks and lighting by Alan C. Edwards.)What befalls Malvolio is the one indelible blot on Shakespeare’s play: recreational cruelty that can’t be jollied away. In this production, though, the rest is lively, witty, fresh — and peppered with crowd-pleasing songs performed by Olivia’s scooter-riding jester, Feste (Israel Erron Ford) — in one instance, with Toby and Andrew as backup dancers. (The original music is by Frederick Kennedy, who also did the sound design; choreography is by company regular Tiffany Rea-Fisher.)As with any oft-told tale, the enjoyment of “Twelfth Night” lies not so much in the destination as in the journey. We know that Sebastian (J’Laney Allen) will turn up, that people will confuse him and Viola — the show’s hair designer, Earon Nealey, is instrumental in this illusion — and that it will all end happily with the romantic triangle squared.This is one of those productions that make you feel lucky to be in New York. You have not seen a Viola like Young’s fierce, funny, fully inhabited Viola. And if your nerves are as frayed as so many of ours are, you could do with the beautiful balm that is this show, working its magic beneath the summer sky as dusk turns to dark.Twelfth NightThrough July 29 at the Richard Rodgers Ampitheater at Marcus Garvey Park, Manhattan; cthnyc.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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      Critic's Pick: 'Seize the King,' Harlem Theater's 'Richard III'

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      It’s a tale that Will Power intends as cautionary, with cycles of history and human violence in mind.Have you been ravenous, lo these many shutdown months, for the layered richness of live theatrical design? The Classical Theater of Harlem has just the thing to sate your hunger.Ambitious design is one of the hallmarks of this company, and it is an absolute joy to encounter it again in such fine form in Will Power’s “Seize the King,” a contemporary verse spin on “Richard III,” in Marcus Garvey Park.The brothers Christopher and Justin Swader, old hands at transfiguring the utilitarian stage of the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater, frame Carl Cofield’s production with a set that is both monumental and minimalist, aglow with Alan C. Edwards’s canny lighting. In the gathering dusk, we gaze on its stony surfaces and square-edged sconces, and enchantment begins even before the show does.It’s a strange word, enchantment, to apply to the story of a duke so hellbent on his own sovereignty that he will murder the 12-year-old nephew who stands in his way — a tale that Power intends as cautionary, with cycles of history and human violence in mind.“The evil in men always resurfaces,” a narrator (Carson Elrod) warns at the start, as the stage walls fill with Brittany Bland’s projections of slave ships and war.Yet there is something inherently spellbinding right now about sitting outdoors in the dark with other humans, and the occasional blinking firefly, watching a performance unfold with doubling and dance.Alisha Espinosa plays Lady Anne, who marries Richard with close to no illusions after he courts her brazenly in her bath. Richard TermineI caught the first preview of the run, since the previous night’s show had been rained out. Because of that, some performances may have been a little tentative. So when I tell you that Ro Boddie, as Richard, lacks the charisma of a scheming antihero who seeks to draw us into his confidence — well, he may grow more comfortable in the role.The same applies to Alisha Espinosa as Edward V, the young heir to the throne, who needs to but does not bruise our hearts. She makes a far better fit as the calculating Lady Anne, who marries Richard with close to no illusions after he courts her brazenly in her bath — a makeover of one of the tackiest wooing scenes in Shakespeare. Kudos, by the way, for the costume designer Mika Eubanks’s neat trick of having Anne’s outfit in that tub scene stand in for frothy bubbles.This production is more adept overall at conveying the play’s humor than its heft: the waste of innocent lives in service of vain rulers, the need for vigilance against the resurgence of the vanquished.Yet the other three principal actors (Andrea Patterson, RJ Foster and Elrod), move easily between comedy and woe, and deliver Power’s complex verse with remarkable clarity. Especially in the scenes they share, they are fun to watch.Dance, a regular feature of Classical Theater of Harlem productions, is used here to extraordinary effect. Choreographed by Tiffany Rea-Fisher with her customary grace, it is woven more deeply than usual into the storytelling — as when we watch the death of the old king, Edward IV, enacted wordlessly — and into the mood of the performance. (Music is by Frederick Kennedy, who also did the very effective sound design.)Dance, a regular feature of Classical Theater of Harlem productions, is used to extraordinary effect. Richard TermineIt is impossible to fully separate the art of theater-making in this chrysalis-shedding moment from the relief we feel simply to be experiencing it. So I will tell you that I felt full in an unexpected way after “Seize the King.” To which, incidentally, admission is free.It was not perfect, and it did not have to be. It was live, it contained multitudes of beauty, and it felt like luxury.Seize the KingThrough July 29 at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater, Manhattan; cthnyc.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More