| What: Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at Maynardville When: January 29 to March 8, 2026 | 20:15 (Mondays to Saturdays) Where: Maynardville Park, Piers Rd, Wynberg, Cape Town Website: www.maynardville.co.za Bookings: Quicket Direct booking link: https://www.quicket.co.za/organisers/56357-maynardville-open-air-festival Cast: Michael Richard (Sir Toby Belch) David Viviers (Feste) Graham Hopkins (Malvolio) Natasha Sutherland (Maria) Jenny Stead (Olivia) Emily Child (Viola) Aidan Scott (Sir Andrew Aguecheek) Ntlanhla Morgan Kutu (Antonio/Curio/Messenger) Lungile Lallie (Fabian/Valentine) Paul Savage (Captain/Officer/Priest) William Young (Sebastian) Director: Steven Stead Set designer: Greg King Costume designer: Maritha Visagie Composer, music director: Wessel Odendaal Lighting designer: Oliver Hauser Sound designer: David Classen Approx running time: 100 minutes, without an interval |
Love. Love. Loved the delicious Twelfth Night at the 2026 Maynardville Open-Air Festival. The season runs until March 7 (Mondays to Saturdays).
Twelfth Night is fun, entertaining, stylish, with a poignant and wry undertow, led by Feste (David Viviers), charming, castigating, crooning, cajoling, singing. He is a Noel Coward type sardonic raconteur, mashed up with the Joel Greg emcee from Cabaret. Director Steven Stead shared these insights at a media preview and it nails the dark edge to Feste in this production which heightens his omniscience in the narrative. He is everywhere, inserted and embedded in the narratives. There’s a sense of a deep yearning, desire as he moons over a portrait of Olivia’s dead brother. The portrait is there in the beginning and then appears later – watch out for it.
The entire cast is a knockout – one can hear each person’s diction – and that is not easy at Maynardville with the ambient sounds in the park which can drown out diction. I loved Natasha Sutherland’s Cockney accent as Olivia’s maid/gentlewoman. Jenny Stead is a revelation as Olivia and a tour de force when she woos her crush Cesario.
Excellent sound design by David Classen – with backtracks from multiple speakers so that it feels as if the sound is live.
The theme of Maynardville 2026, in Full Swing, is grounded in jazz, inspired by Fellini’s 1960’s film Le Dolce Vita. Joyous score and original music by Wessel Odendaal, who plays with jazzy notes.
Music is key to Twelfth Night, from the get go with the self-obsessed Orsino, proclaiming: “If music be the food of love, play on.” Circling back to Feste as a Cabaret type, Emcee. One gets a sense of the play being a cabaret in an Italian villa in Illyria. It is a lot of fun, we know that, but edginess undercuts the pithy lines by the Bard. Impressive singing by Viviers and other cast members in parts, with dynamic singing finale. Unease breaks through in Feste’s stirring last song in which he muses about dealing with life, the incessant rain and wind (we can relate to the wind in Cape Town). As I understand it, we need to enjoy life and embrace love. Life is challenging, joy is fleeting. Then he tells us that the play is finished and that we can go home.
The costumes (Maritha Visagie) and multi-levelled set (Greg King) are divinely gorgeous. Maynardville in itself is a character and can upstage sets, with trees and other elements dominating. King’s set, lighting by Oliver Hauser and the bold silhouettes of the costumes (particularly Olivia – Jenny Stead) and Maria (Natasha Sutherland) sharply delineate this production. The Noel Coward smoking jackets of Feste and blazers worn by Violo/ Cesario and Sebastian all define the bold silhouetted aesthetic for this production. Visagie sets up a vibrant interplay between Oliva and Maria – in similar short black cocktail dresses.. When Maria takes off her apron and they both don sunglasses, they look the same. Their clothes become masks, disguises. Visagie’s dressing of Cesario and Sebastian in matching blazers and haircuts, marks them as twins, without becoming a big deal from a gender point of view. They are both marvellously gender fluid.
I love the use of King’s tree-shaping/topiary elements, in the set, which upstage the trees in the garden. They are ornamental – holding their own in the natural habitat. These trees and shrubs have been primped, crimped and groomed, as have the protagonists who assume personas, often at odds with who they are.
The comedic timing is fabulous. Michael Richard (Sir Toby Belch) and Graham Hopkins as Malvolio are a scream. But they are not just in it for laughs. One senses their back-stories – their quest at social climbing, to rise above their stations, to fit in, somehow.
Congrats to the creative team, cast and VR Theatrical for a hugely entertaining Twelfth Night; trimmed to 100 minutes, with pathos and poignancy, underpinning the fun. Steven Stead says, it is a “comedy which is set against a background of loss.” Viola and Sebastian had lost each other on the shipwreck at the start but had to go on living and finding love. Loss is a potent leitmotif – loss of loved ones, loss of identity, loss of social standing. Underpinning this production, conceptually is a sense of transcending the stuff that is sent our way, through music, romance (and love if one can get it), gorgeous clothes and glam surroundings. Happy 70th birthday Maynardville and thank you for a thrilling and utterly mesmerising Twelfth Night under the stars.
❇ Twelfth Night at Maynardville 2026. Pic: Claude Barnardo. Supplied.
