Smoke and mirrors. Kandis Cook's simple design for this Twelfth Night centres around smoke and mirrors (glass on one side, mirror on the other) in a production that highlights powerfully the theme of the play that most captivates Bartlett: the putting on of costumes. The audience is constantly reminded, in what Bartlett describes as an "incredible dressing-up box of a play" that almost every character in Twelfth Night is in one disguise or another, from Viola's transformation into the eunuch Cesario through Olivia's role as mourning sister, to Malvolio's ridiculous yellow cross-gartered outfit, with many subtler disguisings of class and gender along the way. The gender confusion and cross dressing in this production underline the sense that nothing is what it seems, gender and sexuality are flexible, and it is society not ourselves that has fixed ideas of man and woman, straight and gay.
      The highlights of the production are the smaller parts. Sir Toby Belch, Andrew Aguecheek and Fabian are a trio of women playing a parody of swaggering upper crust males with great aplomb. James Clyde is a wonderfully louche Feste, and by playing the fool as a master of ceremonies and dry commentator at the piano we are reminded again that the whole show is an act. John Lithgow's Malvolio is hilarious and perfectly judged, from the ridiculous dignity to his shaming humiliation by cruel joke.
       The less successful aspects are (surprisingly from Bartlett) the lack of sexiness or genuine tension, and a lack of real emotional engagement. There is nothing between Viola and Orsino, or even Olivia and Viola. Chris New's "make me a willow cabin at your gate" is the only really poignant moment, which turns Olivia (played wonderfully by the excellent Justine Mitchell). Ultimately I wondered whether the cross gender casting and self-consciously post-modern themes (shifting gender, social constructs, class confusion) didn't feel a little tired. And others have had the idea of all male Twelfth Nights not so long ago (Mark Rylance's sublime and poignant production at Middle Temple and the Globe, followed by Declan Donnellan's and Ed Hall's). In the end this production was very enjoyable but unexpectedly conventional.
Maya Lester