One great Night

****

Unusually for a Shakespeare play, the language is among the less important aspects of Declan Donnellan's production of Twelfth Night.

This is partly because it's in Russian: some of the text has been cut; and the surtitles read clumsily. It's startling that this barely matters.

Donnellan treats Shakespeare's most melancholic play about love and deception rather like a ballet, accentuating tones, shades and moods rather than dialogue.

Most notably this is achieved through Nick Ormerod's elemental set design: the first half is cast in black; the second in white, emphasising the play's movement from grief to love and, with it, the equally important theme of being lost to being found.

The character studies are bountiful: Dmitri Shcherbina plays the delusional, much abused Malvolio completely straight, diluting the character's innate pomposity with a sincerity that only highlights the vicious cruelty of his treatment.

Sir Toby Belch has the chilly mournfulness of the Russian drunk (the party scene between him and Sir Andrew Aguecheek is fantastic.)

The use of an all-male cast plays on Shakespeare's fascination with the fluidity of gender and brings a sophisticated poignancy to the love scenes between Viola/Cesario and Olivia and Orsino.

The acting is rigourously controlled; the production beautiful.

Until Sat 17 June. (0845 120 7550)

The Complete Works Festival: Twelfth Night (Chekhov International Theatre Festival)