Twelfth Night, or What You Will
Twelfth Night, or What You Will is a
comedy by
William Shakespeare.
The play is named after the
Twelfth Night holiday. It was written to be performed as part of Twelfth Night celebrations and first performed at
Candlemas,
February 2, which was then the culmination of the long winter feast at
Middle Temple Hall,
London by Shakespeare's company, the
Lord Chamberlain's Men. The presumed time of the play's composition is between
1599 and late
1601.
The setting of Twelfth Night is especially important to the play's romantic atmosphere. "
Illyria" refers to a place on the east coast of the Adriatic Ocean (between what is now
Greece and
Albania), but in Shakespeare's time the name may not have suggested a real country. Illyria may have been as fantastical a place as
Camelot. Like so many of
Shakespeare's comedies, this one centres on mistaken identity. The leading character, Viola, is shipwrecked in the shores of Illyria during the opening scenes. She loses contact with her twin brother, Sebastian, whom she believes dead. Masquerading as a young page under the name Cesario, she enters the service of Duke Orsino. Orsino is in love with the bereaved Lady Olivia, and unsuccessfully uses Viola as an intermediary. The latter thenceforth poses as a male.
Olivia, believing Viola to be male, falls in love with her. Viola, in turn, falls in love with the Duke, who believes that Viola is male. When Sebastian arrives on the scene, confusion ensues. Mistaking Sebastian for Viola, Olivia asks him to marry her. The play ends in a declaration of
marriage between the Duke and Viola, Toby and Maria, and Olivia and Sebastian, though the marriage is never actually seen.
Much of the play is taken up with the comic
subplot, in which several characters conspire to make Olivia's pompous head
steward Malvolio believe that the lady Olivia wishes to marry him. It involves Olivia's uncle,
Sir Toby Belch; her would-be suitor, a silly squire named
Sir Andrew Ague-Cheek; her servants Maria and Fabian; and her father's favorite
fool, Feste. Sir Toby and Sir Andrew disturb the peace of their lady's house by keeping late hours and perpetually singing
catches at the very top of their voices.
The company convinces Malvolio that Olivia is secretly in love with him, and writes a letter in Olivia's hand, asking Malvolio to wear yellow stockings cross-gartered, be rude to the rest of the servants, and to smile under all circumstances. Olivia, saddened by Viola's attitude to her, asks for her chief steward, and is shocked by a Malvolio who has seemingly lost his mind. She leaves him to the contrivances of the group above.
In fact, many characters in
Twelfth Night assume disguises, such as Viola, Malvolio and Feste. Shakespeare uses it to raise questions about human identity and whether such classifications as gender and class status are fixed entities or can be altered with a simple shift of clothes. Although this is one of Shakespeare's most popular and funniest comedies, it has a dark side, as the behaviour of Sir Toby and Feste towards Malvolio becomes increasingly cruel towards the end. Malvolio is locked in a
dungeon for alleged madness and forced to swear his submission to the
heretical doctrines of
Pythagoras. Malvolio departs in a bad humor, vowing revenge "on the whole pack of you." Orsino dispatches several servants to attempt to placate him.
:See also
Shakespeare on screen (Twelfth Night)There have been a number of notable film adaptions of the play.
In 1910,
Vitagraph Studios released the silent short adaptation
Twelfth Night starring actors
Florence Turner,
Julia Swayne Gordon and
Marin Sais.
On
May 14 1937, the
BBC Television Service in
London broadcast a thirty-minute excerpt of the play, the first known instance of a work of Shakespeare being performed on
television. Produced for the new medium by
George More O'Ferrall, the production is also notable for having featured a young actress who would later go on to win an
Academy Award â€"
Greer Garson. As the performance was transmitted
live from the BBC's studios at
Alexandra Palace and the technology to record television programmes did not at the time exist, no visual record survives other than still photographs.
The entire play was produced for television in 1939, directed by
Michel Saint-Denis and starring another future oscar-winner,
Peggy Ashcroft. The part of Sir Toby Belch was taken by a young
George Devine.
The
1996 film adapted and directed by
Trevor Nunn, is set in the
19th century, stars
Imogen Stubbs as Viola,
Helena Bonham Carter as Olivia, and features
Mel Smith as Sir Toby,
Richard E. Grant as Sir Andrew and
Ben Kingsley as Feste.
A
2003 telemovie adapted and directed by
Tim Supple is set in the present day. It features
David Troughton as Sir Toby, and is notable for its multi-ethnic cast including
Parminder Nagra as Viola. Its portrayal of Viola and Sebastian's arrival in Illyria is reminiscent of news footage of
asylum seekers.
The 2006 film
She's the Man modernises the story as a contemporary teenage comedy (as
10 Things I Hate about You does to
The Taming of the Shrew and
O does to
Othello). It is set in a prep school named Illyria and incorporates the names of the play's major characters (for example, "Duke Orsino" becomes simply "Duke" and his last name is Orsino.) The pizza place in it is named "Cesario's" and there are many references in the movie to minor characters in
Twelfth Night, such as Sir Toby, Feste, Valentine, and Malvolio.
The climax of the film
Shakespeare in Love dramatises a fictional inspiration for
Twelfth Night.
The film
V for Vendetta contains significant references to the play, including the fact that the female lead, Evey (
Natalie Portman), played the role of Viola.
When the play was first performed, all female parts were played by men or boys, but it has been the practice for some centuries now to cast women or girls in the female parts in all plays. The company of
Shakespeare's Globe,
London, has produced many notable, highly popular all-male performances, and a highlight of their
2002 season was
Twelfth Night, with the Globe's artistic director
Mark Rylance playing the part of Olivia. This season was preceded, in February, by a performance of the play by the same company at Middle Temple Hall, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the play's premiere, at the same venue.
#Vahimagi, Tise.
British Television: An Illustrated Guide.
Oxford.
Oxford University Press /
British Film Institute.
1994. ISBN 0-19-818336-4. (Page 8).
*
Searchable Twelfth Night Etext*
Twelfe Night - HTML version of this title.
*
Twelfth Night - plain vanilla text from
Project Gutenberg
