The plot reads like a mash-up of Shakespearean comedic tropes, even though it plays like a singular work of genius. We start with separated twins, recalling The Comedy of Errors; Viola (Esther Hannaford) and Sebastian (Caleb Alloway) survive a shipwreck but presume each other perished. Viola disguises herself as a pageboy named Cesario and enters the service of Duke Orsino (Lachlan Woods), with whom she promptly falls in love, à la As You Like It. When she is sent to woo the countess Olivia (Christie Whelan Browne) on the Duke’s behalf, she finds herself having to resist the lady’s affections. This results in a group of lovers who each love somebody different, the central conceit in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Christie Whelan Browne as Olivia in Twelfth Night (photo by Jeff Busby)

It is interesting that all of these antecedents have a vein of darkness or deep melancholia flowing just under the surface. Hamlet says he has ‘of late – but wherefore I know not – lost all my mirth’, but that’s equally true of at least half the characters in Twelfth Night. They may claim to know the origin of their grief, but its true source feels strangely out of reach. As Harold Bloom says in Shakespeare: The invention of the human (1998): ‘An abyss hovers just beyond [the play]’. The director’s job is to tease these deeper currents to the surface without dampening the comedy. While Simon Phillips does an admirable job with the more rambunctious elements of the play, he tends to shortchange the plangency. It’s not a deliberate turning from the darker aspects of the piece – indeed, some of the most savage lines hit hardest – but a by-product of his emphasis on festive foolery.

The upshot is that the production is extremely funny. The most riotous performance is that of Frank Woodley, who makes the ludicrous fop Sir Andrew Aguecheek something of a paragon of foolishness. While extended digressions of stage business and dumb-show buffoonery can cripple Shakespeare, Woodley’s drunken attempt to walk through a doorway is simply one of the funniest things I have ever seen. His genius for physical comedy ranks with artists like Marcel Marceau, and is everywhere on sublime display. Richard Piper makes a hearty meal of Sir Toby Belch, the character with the most lines in the play, and who is also its lord of misrule. Colin Hay, of Men at Work fame, makes a rather taciturn Feste, but his singing is so soulful it places the character at the centre of the drama.

Richard Piper as Sir Toby Belch and Frank Woodley as Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night (photo by Jeff Busby)

Russell Dykstra, who replaced Geoffrey Rush in the role of Malvolio before rehearsals began, emphasises the fastidiousness of the part over the narcissism, which makes his extended humiliation even harder to bear than usual. Malvolio is condemned to ignominy and torture, mainly because of a kind of haughty steadfastness to rule and regulation; his comeuppance seems due to his misguided entertainment of the idea of social mobility, rather than a particular wrong he has committed on any person. This makes Olivia’s maidservant Maria (Tamsin Carroll in the fiercest, most focused, and resolute performance of the night), who has concocted this ‘revenge’ on Malvolio and who eventually does wed well above her station, the play’s chief plotter and angel of retribution, but also the greatest hypocrite left standing. Whether this represents justice of any kind is a question left unanswered.

Frank Woodley, Richard Piper, Colin Hay, and Russell Dykstra in Twelfth Night (photo by Jeff Busby)

The lovers feel almost like the subplot in this production. Hannaford’s Viola is plaintive and likeable, and she brings a breeziness to the character’s gender gymnastics, but she only occasionally hits the high poetic lyricism that the role invites. Woods nails the narcissism and reflected love impulse of Orsino, even if he never touches the delicate self-mockery the part calls for. Whelan Browne is delicious, as surprised as we are by her precipitous headlong fall into infatuation, but it must be said that two of her stand-out moments – the first when she turns and sees Malvolio in his cross-gartered attire and emphasises the O in his name; the second when she suggests a slight sexual frisson at the sight of two Cesarios on her line ‘Most wonderful!’ – are uncannily similar to Mark Rylance’s seminal Globe Theatre performance in the role. It’s not fair to call it an ersatz performance, but it’s also hardly definitive.

Phillips is a big-picture director, and his vision here is glorious; his Illyria is really just Venice in the Baroque, but so sumptuously realised and so effortlessly staged – the stunning set and lavish white-gold costumes are by Gabriela Tylesova, the sublime musical arrangements by Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall –  it carries that wonder that suggests a fully articulated other world. Hamlet’s fool is dead, but Twelfth Night is chock full of live ones. I know where I’d rather spend Christmas.

Twelfth Night is being performed at the Southbank Theatre by Melbourne Theatre Company from 12 November 2018 to 5 January 2019. Performance attended: November 16.

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