Review: Malvolio — A Shakespearean Sequel That Falls Painfully Short of the Original

Last summer in Marcus Garvey Park, the Classical Theatre of Harlem presented a much-acclaimed production of Twelfth Night that blew the cobwebs off William Shakespeare’s comedy in raucous Afro-futuristic fashion. Seemingly determined to repeat that success a year later, the company now presents Malvolio, a world-premiere sequel by Betty Shamieh that not only brings back one of the cast members from that production, but has been directed by Ian Belknap and Ty Jones to recall its predecessor’s look and feel. But nostalgia can only do so much to cover up a dire text.

The returning cast member is Allen Gilmore as the title character, last seen swearing revenge on those who had played a cruel joke on him. Twenty years later, he’s now a respected general fighting a war against a nation literally named Barbaria, but who still burns with the fire of vengeance. A salve for his psychological wounds appears in the form of Volina (Kineta Kunutu), daughter of Duke Orsino (René Thornton) and Duchess Viola (Perri Gaffney), who, inspired by her mother’s example, dresses up as a young boy to warn King Chadlio (John-Andrew Morrison) about the illegal wartime consumption of ale in Illyria. Unlike in Twelfth Night, the ruse is quickly dismantled, but amid the King’s blithe dismissal of her concerns, she lays eyes on Malvolio and falls in love immediately. Malvolio, however, can’t help but view her subsequent love letters to him with suspicion, vowing not to become the butt of another prank.

Other characters from Twelfth Night pop up in Malvolio — among them two of Malvolio’s original tormentors, Sir Toby Belch (David Ryan Smith) and Maria (Paula Galloway). Betrothed at the end of Shakespeare’s play, the pair here find their marriage in a state of exhaustion, with Maria craving sexual attention from a husband whose mind appears to be elsewhere. If anything, Sir Toby is more concerned with Sebastian (Nathan M. Ramsey), who became so disenchanted with his marriage to Olivia (Stephanie Berry) that he faked his own death and is now hiding out in a brothel. Shamieh’s commentary about the fragility of long-term relationships coexists with a razzing of class differences, with the laziness and corruption of the upper class represented by both King Chadlio and his son, Prince Furtado (JD Mollison), who is so inept that he can’t even pull off killing his own father successfully.

Both thematic prongs suggest promising avenues of exploration for a follow-up to one of Shakespeare’s greatest comedies. But to hitch one’s artistic vision to the Bard is to risk running a fool’s errand. For the most part, Shamieh doesn’t really try to emulate Shakespeare’s rhythms and wordplay, opting instead to have her characters speak in a contemporary style that comes off as distractingly arch when it isn’t embarrassingly prosaic about its themes. Her heavy-handed comic touch hardly helps. A joke about the residents of a nation called Dalmatia being “dogs” that is later repeated visually with two characters wearing dalmation-like outfits (courtesy of costume designer Celeste Jennings) is the kind of sophomoric humor that suggests a playwright for whom comedy doesn’t come easily.

As Malvolio, Gilmore delivers Shamieh’s third-rate imitation Shakespeare with enough conviction that he almost makes you believe you’re hearing the real thing. The rest of the game cast follows suit in their own ways. Morrison provides some of the evening’s only genuine laughs, bringing a devil-may-care fecklessness to King Chadlio’s unabashed amorality, with Mollison similarly exuberant as his ineffectual son. Berry and Gaffney conjure up some genuine pathos in a confrontation between Olivia and Viola in which the former cops to how the latter’s behavior as Cesario in Twelfth Night led to the splintering of Olivia’s marriage to Sebastian (it’s also the only scene that acknowledges the queer aspects of Shakespeare’s original). Kunutu is convincingly youthful and lovelorn as Volina, but she inevitably pales alongside memories of Kara Young as Viola last summer.

Visually and aurally, Belknap and Jones ramp up ideas Carl Cofield played with in Twelfth Night, with mixed results. Christopher and Justin Swader’s scenic design may not differ much from Riw Rakkulchon’s previous spacey, triangle-dominated set, but it does offer a canvas for lighting designer Alan C. Edwards to pull off some striking silhouette effects, with actors bathed in shadow in front of Zavier Augustus Lee Taylor’s video projections. And choreographer Dell Howlett comes up with dances that embrace everything from mechanistic warlike precision to flexible warmhearted jubilation. Overall, though, the directors do themselves no favors by inviting comparisons to last year’s Twelfth Night, just as Shamieh does herself no favors by trying to follow up on Shakespeare and falling painfully short.