Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. First performed c1601. Perhaps the most popular Shakespeare play in South African theatre, certainly performed more than any other in the 19th century. [???***

South African performances

First recorded South African performance in the Military Barracks in Cape Town in 179*?]

Produced by Marda Vanne in the Hofmeyr Hall in 1941, also playing Maria. With Gwen ffrangçon-Davies (Olivia), Lydia Lindeque (Viola), Cecil Williams (Orsino). Settings by Basil South. Music composed or arrangend by Percival Kirby and recorded in Johannesburg.

Performed professionally in English by NTO in 1953, directed by Leonard Schach, featuring Gerrit Wessels, Siegfried Mynhardt, Frank Wise, Alan Chadwick, Edna Jacobson, Roma Reilly. Aedwyn Darroll, Vivienne Drummond, Michael Perry, Pieter Geldenhuys, David Ritch, Barry Lategan, Tom Spring. Decor and costumes Frank Graves.

Other notable productions include **, **, **, **,. It has been performed a number of times at Maynardville, beginning with ***’s version in 195*, with ** and including Roy Sargeant's 1978 (with Jana Cilliers, Helen Bourne, Evelyn Dalberg, Roger Dwyer, John Whiteley, Daniel Davies, John Burch, Joseph Ribeiro), Clare Stopford's 1998 and Geoffrey Hyland’s 2006 versions, with **.

An innovative production by The Company in the Blue Fox, Johannesburg in the 1970s used a set consisting only of two cushions, two deck chairs and a green carpet with a hole in it.

Translations and adaptations

Translated into Afrikaans as Twaalfde Nag by Uys Krige (HAUM, 1967) and first performed by PACT?* on 11 August 1964 (dir. Leonard Schach, the cast including Marius Weyers, James Norval, Francois Swart, Louis van Niekerk). Often performed in that language too, e.g. the PACOFS production at the National Festival of the Arts in Grahamstown in 1984 under the direction of Truida Louw with Nico Liebenberg, Christo Compion, Franz Grabe, Anita de Jager, Danie Burger, Marko van der Colff, Johan Malherbe, Helene Truter, Bill Curry, Mary Dreyer, Pierre van Pletzen, Blaise Koch, Christo Potgieter, Hugo Taljaard, Danie Burger, and others. Decor by Johan Badenhorst, costumes by James Parker.

A notable multiracial production of the Afrikaans text was done by Janice Honeyman at the Oude Libertas Theatre in Stellenbosch, KKNK and Baxter Theatre in 2005, featuring i.a. Anna-Mart van der Merwe, Marius Weyers, Peter Butler, Chris van Niekerk, Jeroen Kranenburg, Quanita Adams, Royston Stoffels and Ivan Abrahams. *

Sources

Trek 26 September 1941, 19.

Helikon, 2(9):19-21.

PACOFS Drama 25 Years, 1963-1988.

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