Tuesday 25 September 2012

Twelfth Night



Shakespeare's Globe
22 September

Here is a perfect sky that quickly turns to velvet and to black.
Here is an oval wreathed in thatch and keen, expectant faces
circling the stage. Tonight this wooden O
is made of shrill high hope and expectation, clamour and acclaim,
as after ten year’s wait one man, one play, returns to play again.
He comes burnished with fame and white with make-up,
guarded, tremulous; and in the face of high sea crowds
he dares to be as delicate and tempered as a skittish foal,
a princess sure as heaven of her jewel case.
He takes the stage and holds it easily
as if it were a pebble in his palm. He barely sighs
but in that sigh there is the squeak and dab of character,
the weight of water and the ocean’s depth.
He wears the dress, the face, the woman in his every breath.



Twelfth Night runs until 14 October at the Globe.



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