Two productions of Twelfth Night: Daughter and Dad, 25 years apart

Enjoyed last night a Susanna Wolk's directorial debut in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," a weekend production at Harvard's Ex Theater - I can say I've had the pleasure of watching Susanna's production and, many years ago, her dad's direction of TN in NYC - a lot of differences in time and place since then but some elements carry across the years in both father and daughter's take on the play: in both productions, a strong emphasis on youth (till recently, so many productions of TN play the leads as mature adults unmoored by love, when it should have been long obvious that they're young, kids even) and on the music: dad Andy Wolk had a "house band" including live piano player (John Lewis) on stage for much of the show; Susanna used lots of original music, most sung by the (female) Feste (Amelia Ross) with a backup guitar duo - very nice. Some differences though: Andy's production emphasized the beauty of the characters: his was one of the first I saw that didn't make them, particular Malvolio, repulsive and idiotic - they were more like wealthy prep-school kids you'd seen on any campus. Susanna emphasized the partying aspect - a lot of heavy drinking, smoking, sexual allusions - they were college (or high-school) kids gone to riot, and settled at the end. Her Malvolio (Ari Brenner) was excellent, very dignified rather than mean or stupid. I always like to look for little unique touches: Susanna had two in particular: the "pirate" Antonio was actually wanted for "music piracy" - as some "Wanted" posters on display pointed out to the audience; and the letter of challenge that Agucheek wrote was penned on a pizza box, which got a laugh out of the line that the letter is rather "saucy." A good, well-paced production - lots of fun.