‘Twelfth Night’ Slowly Passes Time

The Grove Theater Center’s production of “Twelfth Night” should be a gourmet meal but looks now like an ordinary weeknight casserole.

Director Kevin Cochran hasn’t gotten even close to the lightness and airiness the play needs. His tempos are sluggish, and within scenes the styles of the actors playing the roles are uncomfortably varied. Set for some odd reason in a Western town at the turn of the 20th century, the play offers spare sets and ambience.

Duke Orsino, played stodgily by Ron Graham, with little hint of the Duke’s romantic appeal, looks like a sleazy Dodge City gambler, not the idol of Viola’s adoration. Jane Macfie’s Viola is a pretty good turn in one of Shakespeare’s most delightful “britches” roles, but she doesn’t have much to play against, and in some scenes she looks abandoned by her fellow players. Viola’s brother Sebastian, who supposedly drowned in the same shipwreck as his sister, is played solidly by Donald Kindle with a rewarding attitude of amazement. .

There are other satisfying performances here such as Jeana Blackman’s Maria, the servant who connives all kinds of mischief; and Tom Reusing’s bilious Sir Toby Belch, a nice comic performance hindered only, again, by nothing to play against. As that pompous fool Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Mike Cunningham seems unsure about how to make himself as much a fool as Sir Andrew is and misses a lot of laughs by this confusion.

Jennifer Mack’s Olivia is stately enough, until she falls apart at the thought of achieving her love and becomes an adolescent bent on lust, and her courtier Malvolio, one of the Bard’s most amusing clowns, is played too prissily by Dan Sapecky. In three roles, Scott Dawson makes points as the servant Valentine, the brash sailor Antonio and an effete Priest.

The biggest casting problem is Cochran’s decision to have Olivia’s fool Feste played by a woman, a role that is so male in its humor and insights that Lori Yeghiayan’s performance--she’s dressed as a frontier saloon girl--becomes snide, obtuse and crude when it should be insightful and ironic.

*

“Twelfth Night,” Muckenthaler Cultural Center, 1201 W. Malvern Ave., Fullerton. Beginning Sept. 6, Thursdays through Sundays, 8:15 p.m. Ends Sept. 16. Thursdays through Sundays, $21.50; Fridays and Saturdays, $25.50. (Pre-show dinner option Fridays and Saturdays, 6:45 to 8 p.m. $15 extra.) (714) 741-9555. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.