For some years now, Tim Crouch has been working on a series of solo shows designed to turn youthful audiences (11+) on to Shakespeare. In 2003 the performer/playwright chose The Tempest and approached the play through Caliban's eyes. The next year he looked at A Midsummer Night's Dream from Peasblossom's point of view. In 2005 it was Banquo's turn with Macbeth. Now he has tackled Twelfth Night in a show called, I, Malvolio.
Malvolio, you will recall is the upright and uptight palace servant mistreated so cruelly and unfairly by Olivia, Countess of Illyria. Tricked into believing she loves him, he makes a pass which results in his being tossed into a dungeon and treated as a dangerous lunatic.
Clad in filthy, piss-stained long underwear and moose ears, Crouch's Malvolio cuts a truly tragic and pathetic figure as he emerges from solitary confinement crying at the top of his voice, "I am not mad!" He then proceeds in pungent and profane fashion to lash into the audience, charging it with the same hypocrisy, moral laxity and all-around boorish behavior evinced by Sir Toby Belch and his henchmen as they caroused drunkenly and piggishly behind Olivia's back.
Raging on about the need for law and order, discipline and obedience to authority, Malvolio acts like a cross between a drill sergeant and a Taliban spokesman -- he hates not only theater but all art -- yet Crouch manages to make us sympathize with him thanks to his skill as a performer and writer. His Malvolio might have awful values, but there is still some dignity and decency to the man. He is also quite funny at times in a blackly humorous way.
In all, I Malvolio shows once again that Crouch is one of the finest solo artists working in theater today.
