Given the important function of music in Twelfth Night, it seems fitting for Sheldon Epps’ 1996 musical riff to make a virtue of it by infusing Shakespeare’s comedy of unrequited love and disguise with the sounds of Duke Ellington’s jazz and swing.
The title itself, after all, refers to the often-quoted words by the lovesick Duke Orsino: “If music be the food of love, play on”. They are adapted for the final medley in this musical, set in 1940s Harlem, inside the Cotton Club.
Most of Shakespeare’s characters are still intact but the story plays fast and loose with the original, although it coheres in its concept. The Duke (Earl Gregory) is a blocked songwriter since falling for the club’s star singer, Lady Liv (Koko Alexandra), while Vy (Tsemaye Bob-Egbe) is an aspiring songwriter from Mississippi who hopes to make it big in the industry only to be told that “this is a man’s world” where women do not compose. This is what leads to her disguise as Vyman, her songs becoming the instrument that woos Liv.
If it is unfaithful, it is very winning in Talawa and Belgrade Theatre’s exuberant all-Black production, which luxuriates in its musicality and movement. Director Michael Buffong puts the band on stage in ULTZ’s clean set design. The blend of jazz and street dance choreography, by Kenrick H2O Sandy, gives the drama its period-yet-contemporary feel, and there are gorgeous ensemble numbers.
There is stunning singing, too, by the cast who bring out Epps’s warm, elegant comedy, along with gentle inquires into love v projection, appearance v reality. Malvolio’s line (“Some are born great, some have greatness thrust upon them …”) is reassigned to the Duke and sounds less pompous, more wistfully about fate. Characters strain to be seen for who they are inside, not what they appear to be.
The first half sparkles, with especially astounding vocals by Alexandra in songs like Mood Indigo; she brings vulnerability, haughtiness and humour to her part. Bob-Egbe is wonderful, too. And Shakespeare’s fool here is a two-timing type called Jester (Llewellyn Jamal) who is a magnetic performer and dancer.
Epps’s changed plot becomes too soft, filing away many of the play’s sharpest edges, especially in the gulling of Malvolio, here transformed into Liv’s head assistant, Rev (Cameron Bernard Jones), who is an overly humane and lovable character. His outcome is not nearly as dark as Malvolio’s and his characterisation as a whole pulls its punches.
There are some very blunt statements around sexual politics in Cheryl L West’s book, and the book seems slight in the second half, with action much more reliant on songs.
But the production plays to the upbeat spirit by bringing a palpable sense of joy (this is part of Talawa’s Black Joy season). It might be unfaithful in its enactment, but in its essence it is a perfectly uplifting transposition.
• At Bristol Old Vic until 25 January, then touring.
