PIANO and TWELFTH NIGHT, OR WHAT YOU WILL, Court Theatre. Both these serious comedies, performed in repertory, explore themes of sexual folly and social inequality. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night portrays a muddled romantic quadrangle: Viola, dressed as a young man, loves Count Orsino, who pines for Olivia and sends Viola to woo her on his behalf; Olivia falls for the disguised Viola, and Olivia’s servant Malvolio is tricked into believing that his mistress will love him if he behaves like a madman. Trevor Griffiths’s 1990 Piano, in its U.S. premiere, depicts indolent Russian gentry on a country estate in 1904, flirting and quarreling while beaten-down peasants labor to support them. Platonov, pursued by a frivolous widow and her idealistic daughter-in-law, obsesses about his own sense of worthlessness while other characters discuss the peasantry (scum or the source of Russia’s moral strength?), the aristocracy (inherently superior or good-for-nothing dinosaurs?), and women (is kissing a lady’s hand a tribute or a subtle way of demeaning her?).
