La nuit des rois [Twelfth Night] Presented by the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, Montreal (review)

Reviewed by: La nuit des rois [Twelfth Night] Presented by the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, Montreal Kim Gauthier La nuit des rois [Twelfth Night] Presented by the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, Montreal, in partnership with the Théâtre Advienne que pourra. 20 September–23 October 2022. Adapted and translated by Rébecca Déraspe and Frédéric Bélanger. Directed by Frédéric Bélanger. Set design by Francis Farley-Lemieux. Costume design by Sarah Balleux. Lighting design by Nicolas Descoteaux. Video conceived by Thomas Payette. Music by Gustafson (Adrien Bletton and Jean-Philippe Perras). Makeup by Amélie Bruneau-Longpré. With Adrien Bletton (Valentin), Guido Del Fabbro (Curio), Thomas Derasp-Verge (Sébastien), Alex Desmarais (Antonio), Kathleen Fortin (Maria), Yves Jacques (Malvolio), Marie-Pier Labrecque (Olivia), Benoît McGinnis (Feste), Jean-Philippe Perras (Orsino), Étienne Pilon (Sir Toby Belch), François-Simon Poirier (Sir Andrew Aguecheek), and Clara Prévost (Viola). “Ce n’est pas mon rôle de vous divulger le vôtre” [“It is not my role to tell you yours”; all translations mine], Feste (Benoît McGinnis) told shipwrecked Viola (Clara Prévost), in the first of a series of metatheatrical references that characterized Rébecca Déraspe and director Frédéric Bélanger’s French-language adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Feste was persuaded to introduce Viola-as-Césario to Orsino’s household and keep her secret in exchange for a story, and while La nuit des rois retained the structure and plot of Shakespeare’s play, Feste’s bookend soliloquies and commentary throughout suggested that this production was his re-telling of that story. From the start, Feste knew more than was possible, including the gap between the play’s generic early modern setting—which required Viola to adopt the persona of Césario for her safety—and the [End Page 143] present day, acknowledged with the convoluted line “à l’époque qui fait que nous sommes à notre époque” [“back then, meaning when we are, now”]. The costumes reinforced the imprecise historical setting, which was early modern in appearance with contemporary details, most notably Malvolio’s (Yves Jacques) infamous yellow stockings—reminiscent of soccer socks—themselves upstaged by hose covered in silver sequins. Modernity was further imposed by the continuous onstage presence of the musical duo Gustafson, made up of Adrien Bletton (Valentin) and Jean-Philippe Perras (Orsino), who performed original music on keyboards and electric guitar, briefly joined by Jacques for the drum solo which punctuated Malvolio’s yellow-stockinged entrance. Click for larger view View full resolution The ensemble of La nuit des rois, dir. Frédéric Bélanger. Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, 2022. Photo by Yves Renaud, courtesy of Théâtre du Nouveau Monde. The visibility of the actor-musicians to the characters appeared variable. Without set changes to indicate shifts from one household to the other, the fictional distance between them occasionally collapsed, and characters interacted with Orsino/Perras even as he sat neutrally in the near-dark: when Toby (Étienne Pilon) emphatically swore to Andrew (François-Simon Poirier) that Olivia had no interest in Orsino, he yelled “No!” towards Orsino/Perras; and Malvolio later gave him Olivia’s ring after Césario rejected it. This metatheatrical device drew additional attention to Feste’s apparent control over the production, playfully semi-acknowledged in his final speech with “si tout est un spectacle, autant le mettre en scène” [“if everything is spectacle, one may as well stage it”]. [End Page 144] Part narrator, director, and master of ceremonies, he used an extended arm to guide characters’ movements and gazes, signaled for music to start and stop, and pointedly asked questions or made comments that revealed characters’ inner thoughts. McGinnis’s turn as Hamlet on the same stage in 2011 may have been conjured up for the audience (as it was for me) by Feste’s black costume and platinum blonde wig, but his lightness, allied to a detached—but not unkind—affect was reminiscent of Shakespeare’s nonhuman characters, and more specifically of Puck, who had a similar function in Bélanger’s 2018 adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream...