SOURCE: "Not a Night to Remember," in The Sunday Times, London, March 3, 1991, p. 13.

Sir Peter Hall's new production of Twelfth Night (Playhouse) is a labour of love, but I do not mean that as a compliment. Hall last directed this play in Stratford 31 years ago: the brilliant 29-year-old who had just founded the RSC and set out to rediscover, underneath Shakespeare the Romantic poet, Shakespeare the hard-headed political writer, the ruthless psychologist, the ironic joker. I saw that first Twelfth Night as a young student and still remember its irresistible freshness, its vigour and its hard but generous humour. Hall showed you precisely how the exquisite lyricism was constantly being undercut by irony: how people laughed through other people's tears.

He now revisits the play in a spirit of uncritical generosity. It unfolds like a Caroline idyll, bathed in soft light and melancholy music. Orsino is a lovesick...