Sydney Reviews

A man in unmentionably soiled longjohns comes muttering onto the stage, a “kick me” sign on his back and blowflies latched onto his filth… he seems truly driven to distraction. Yet as pitiable a sight though this may be, it will be no mere tale of woe.

For those unfamiliar with Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, you might be a little lost at first, though eventually the plot of that play is recounted in this one by way of some context, but for a while this engrossingly awkward one-hander is essentially a stream of prudish abuse, as a supremely disheveled sourpuss castigates the audience for their transgressions of his puritan views. While he wanders about the stage accusing random audience members of smoking, drinking, dressing immodestly and so forth, we begin to form a tragicomic portrait of a very bitter man. One who, despite his protestations to the contrary, has clearly gone at least a touch mad.

As beloved as Twelfth Night is, Malvolio the steward (or butler) has come to be seen as bit of a “problem” character for some scholars and theatrical interpreters. As antagonistic comic relief, his bluenosed opposition to the louche yet far more lovable Sir Toby Belch results in a conspiracy to make a fool of him as the play’s main subplot. The difficulty for some in approaching the material, however, lies in the humiliation and resulting temporary imprisonment of Malvolio all seeming drastically out of proportion to his perceived crimes of wowserism and pretentions of class mobility. However detestable he may seem, it is hard to dispute that this man has been “most notoriously abused.”

Shakespeare imbues Malvolio with some genuine pathos towards the end, and the fact that his tormentors only get, as it’s put in this play, “a pretty mild ticking off”, seems to be something of a legitimate injustice. Modern productions of Twelfth Night tend to run the spectrum between seeking to either justify Belch and his cronies by emphasising Malvolio’s unpleasantness so that an audience will feel like he indeed deserves what he gets, or alternatively by portraying the torments in the latter scenes as more of a sobering tonal shift, and the butler’s parting vow to be “revenged on the whole pack of you” as being in earnest.

Written and performed by Tim Crouch as the latest in a series of examinations of Shakespeare’s minor characters, I, Malvolio, seeks to amalgamate these approaches. Intermixing the character’s pathos with his potential for bathos, his Malvolio is repugnant yet sympathetic, laughable, but uncomfortably so. It is actually something of a fascinating character study, not just of this particular Shakespearean role, but by extension of the whole dramatic archetype of comedically mistreated characters who are framed as officious or self-important in order to justify the equally if not more unpleasant actions of a maverick hero or sympathetic comedic protagonist.

Here, Crouch takes on the challenge of walking that line between appearing as unlikeable as possible yet, in truth, actually being the victim. However, as much as this play is a study of Shakespeare’s Malvolio, it is also an idiosyncratic piece of theatrical comedy in its own right. While foreknowledge of the original play is helpful, this would probably work regardless as a bizarre little one-man show.

Establishing a curious reality in which Crouch on the one hand never really breaks character as Malvolio, appearing still bedraggled as though having come directly from the ending of Twelfth Night, he speaks not in faux-Shakespearean yet formally, peppered with mild anachronisms and a sparing use of quotes. Yet conversely there is no fourth wall – he is unambiguously addressing a Sydney Festival audience, in the Carriageworks theatre, looking at him on a stage.

There are quite a few bits of fun metatheatricality, though, as the show appears to be designed with latitude for improvisation, interacting with the audience, berating latecomers, occasionally reacting as the real sounds of passing trains or other adjacent performances intrude into the space, or even passing comment on when things go off-script or don’t get quite the same response as in other performances. Yet for the most part it seems that these comments are made while still managing to remain in-character, with Malvolio as often as not attacking the audience for giving him the very laughs for which Crouch the actor is clearly aiming. It is an extremely assured performance, which keeps the audience on a razor’s edge between discomfort and hilarity, pity and contempt.

And be warned, avoiding the front row is no guarantee of safety from being officiously commanded onto stage to help him get dressed, or, just possibly, commit suicide.

Perhaps a bit unintelligible for the very young, this is a meandering yet extremely sharp piece of comedic solo theatre, a meditation on the put-upon prudes, losers and self-righteous prigs of the theatrical landscape.


Sydney Festival 2014
I, Malvolio
Tim Crouch

Venue: Track 8 | Carriageworks, Eveleigh
Dates: 16 – 19 January 2014
Tickets: $35
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