Twelfth Night, Or, What You Will
by William Shakespeare
Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England in 1564, William Shakespeare was a glove maker’s son who later became the most famous of British ...
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Biography Essay"He was not of an age, but for all time." So wrote Ben Jonson in his dedicatory verses to the memory of William Shakespeare in 1623, and so we continue to affirm today. No other writer,...
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The English playwright, poet, and actor William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is generally acknowledged to be the greatest of English writers and one of the most extraordinary creators in human history.The ...
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Considered by critics, scholars, and the theater-going public the most important dramatist in the history of English literature, William Shakespeare occupies a unique position in the pantheon of great...
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"He was not of an age, but for all time." So wrote Ben Jonson in his dedicatory verses to the memory of William Shakespeare in 1623, and so we continue to affirm today. No other writer, in English or ...
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William Shakespeare's reputation is based primarily on his plays. With the partial exception of the Sonnets (1609), quarried since the early nineteenth century for autobiographical secrets allegedly ...
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Laurie Osborne, Oakland University/Colby College
Simultaneity and coincidence are the essential features which connect Viola and Sebastian in Twelfth Night. Twins, after all, are born at the ...
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Casey Charles, University of Montana
The emergence of queer studies in the academy has led to many influential rereadings of Renaissance works, including those of Shakespeare.1 While Twelfth ...
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In the essay below, Charles maintains that Twelfth Night critiques Renaissance notions of masculinity and femininity, demonstrating that the dualism of homosexuality and heterosexuality is a social co...
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In the following essay, Rayner examines the moral dimensions of appetite, virtue, and love in Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night.
Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no ...
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In the following essay, Thomson links the music of Twelfth Night—its lyricism as well as its musical interludes, ballads, and catches—to the prominence of hypothetical speeches by variou...
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In the following essay, Palmer examines Shakespeare's adaptation of Ovid's Echo and Narcissus myth in Twelfth Night.
Orsino's attitude to love, particularly in the play'...
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In the following essay, Lamb studies Shakespeare's use of internalized metamorphosis in his representation of Orsino and Olivia, as well as his application of “Ovidian” rhetoric i...
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In the following essay, Taylor details Shakespeare's reshaping of the Narcissus myth from Ovid's Metamorphoses in the Olivia-Viola-Orsino relationship of Twelfth Night.
The writer is ...
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Lorna Hutson, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London
Elder Loveless. Mistres, your wil leads my speeches from the purpose. But as a man—
Lady. A Simile servant? Thi...
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In the following essay, Hunt discusses the attitudes toward providence expressed by various characters in Twelfth Night, as well as the play’s satirical treatment of Puritanism.
Much has bee...
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In the following essay, Robertson focuses on the gulling scene (Act III, scene iv) in Twelfth Night, emphasizing the rarity of a revenge perpetrated by a woman. She asserts that Maria's literac...
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In the following excerpt, Warren and Wells survey Twelfth Night's setting, sources, themes, and major characters. The critics' discussion is often informed by insights gleaned from twent...
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In the following essay, Willbern relates Malvolio and his downfall to the play's theme of festivity.
Malvolio, that humorless steward, sick of merrymakers and self-love, seems almost a stran...
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In the following review of Trevor Nunn's 1996 film version of Twelfth Night, Lyons describes the effort as undeniably successful, and finds that although the film teases the boundaries of ...
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In the following review, Stearns assesses the production of Twelfth Night directed by Nicholas Hytner, which featured Helen Hunt as Viola. Stearns describes the production as a whole as lavish but not...
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In the following review of Nicholas Hytner's Twelfth Night, Brustein contends that the production failed to explore the play's deeper issues and complexities. Brustein applauds Helen Hun...
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In the following review, Merwin offers a mixed appraisal of Nicholas Hytner's production of Twelfth Night. The critic argues that Hytner and stage designer Bob Crowley failed to create an atmos...
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In the following essay, Magro and Douglas analyze the treatment of gender issues in Trevor Nunn's 1996 film adaptation of Twelfth Night, and maintain that Nunn's production suppresses th...
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In the following essay, Osborne studies the ways in which Trevor Nunn's film adaptation of Twelfth Night adopts a heavy-handed approach to film editing and textual rearrangement in order to pro...
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In the following essay, Schwartz presents Twelfth Night as an example of “festive” comedy, in which the atmosphere of merriment expresses a vision of human life that focuses on life�...
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In the following essay, Elam uses Viola's reference to her cross-dressing, in which she states she will play the role of a eunuch, as an entry point for discussing the cultural history of castr...
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In the following essay, Kerrigan studies Twelfth Night within the context of the Renaissance conventions regarding secrecy and gossip, finding that gossip is a means—both in early modern societ...
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In the following essay, Hurworth explores the representation of deception, or gulling, in Twelfth Night. Hurworth highlights the links between criminal deception as it is described in Elizabethan narr...
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In the following essay, Dean analyzes Twelfth Night as the union of Renaissance Platonism and Augustinian theology, contending that Shakespeare employed the device of twins in order to explore the not...
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In the following essay, Hartman examines Shakespeare's use of poetic language, punning, and wordplay in Twelfth Night.
1
Writing about Shakespeare promotes a sympathy with extremes. One such...
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In the following essay, Forbes examines Shakespeare's vivid character portraits in Twelfth Night, including the self-assured and charming Viola, the courageous and forthright Sebastian, the nar...
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In the following essay, Champion argues that Twelfth Night features some of Shakespeare's most well-developed comic characters whose true but hidden identities are revealed over the course of t...
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In the following essay, Lewis contends that Antonio, rather than Viola, is the moral center of Twelfth Night, but acknowledges that the play is principally concerned with Viola's moral developm...
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In the following essay, Cahill offers a psychoanalytic reading of Malvolio in Twelfth Night, highlighting his narcissism and painful identity crisis as well as his thwarted and obsessive desires for s...
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In the following excerpted review of the 2001 to 2002 Royal Shakespeare Company season at Stratford-upon-Avon, Jackson observes the erotic and decadent qualities of director Lindsay Posner's st...
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In the following review of the 2002 Holderness Theater Company production of Twelfth Night directed by Rebecca Holderness, Gross praises the minimalist staging of the play and calls attention to its f...
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In the following review of Brian Kulick's 2002 staging of Twelfth Night at the open-air Delacorte Theatre in New York City's Central Park, Brustein contends that Kulick and his star-stud...
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In the following excerpted review of the 2002 Donmar Warehouse Theatre staging of Twelfth Night directed by Sam Mendes, Mullan contends that an overemphasis on the erotic and sensual aspects of the dr...
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In the following essay, Tromly suggests that folly is a positive force in Twelfth Night, one that allow the characters to come to terms with life by learning to accept “delusion, vulnerability,...
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In the following essay, Logan claims that Twelfth Night—despite its ostensible depiction of a festive and happy resolution—contains glimpses of the darker side of human desire.
In a r...
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In the following essay, Slights maintains that Twelfth Night illustrates the thematic principal of reciprocity as the foundation of successful human relationships.
Like Shakespeare's other r...
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In the following essay, Tan discusses the relationship of music to Twelfth Night's theme of sexual ambivalence.
The Elusive Nature of Gi; the Elusive Nature of twelfth Night =~ Stwelfth Night...
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A by no means inconsiderable advantage was enjoyed by Mr. Irving in ordaining the scenery, costumes, and general decorations of his superb revival of Twelfth Night in the circumstance that he was not ...
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Although Mr. Daly has expended much labor and money upon his elaborate revival of Shakespeare's delightful comedy of Twelfth Night, and is entitled on that account to credit and gratitude, it m...
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The RSC production of Twelfth Night. . . , has the sort of clever charm which would make a forward-looking stomach turn. It is set very beautifully (a serious lapse already) in a Greek island or town,...
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John Carlisle's Malvolio (replacing Antony Sher) is the only major cast change in Bill Alexander's production since Jeremy Kingston reviewed it in Stratford last July; but the immediate ...
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There's no stopping Kenneth Branagh. No sooner has his face disappeared from our Sunday night television screens and The Fortunes of War than it reappears on the large screen in A Month in the ...
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At first I thought we might be in for some shocks as Kenneth Branagh's production of Twelfth Night at the Riverside Studios reversed the order of Shakespeare's first two scenes. But it t...
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Opal and taffeta—materials that flicker between one tinge and another—are both mentioned in Twelfth Night: appropriately for, placed at a time of the year when festivity shades back into...
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From the programme arranged like an advent calendar and the stage upon which at first you can make out only wintry shapes because of an expanse of gauze which veils the view, it is apparent that Kenne...
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Too much has been made of the supposed bitterness of Shakespeare's Arcadia. For instance, to Auden, Shakespeare was in no mood for comedy in this play. Instinctively, I side with Hazlitt who he...
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"If music be the food of love, play on" is arguably the most famous and oft-quoted opening line in all Shakespearian comedy. It takes, therefore, a certain amount of courage to start Twe...
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It is ten to eight in Illyria, snowing, and Christmas is well under way. There are plenty of drinks and jokes, a tree and presents, as well as songs and hangovers. The twelve days of Christmas pass; t...
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Confronted with the business of reviewing yet another production of Twelfth Night, which sometimes seems to occur about every three or four weeks. I have often thought to fill up a bit of the space by...
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The production of Twelfth Night is the most interesting feature in Mr. Daly's programme since his memorable revival of Taming of the Shrew. As in most recent Shakespearean representations, too ...
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The newly-formed Renaissance Theatre Company was launched in style at the Riverside Studios with a sell-out run of Twelfth Night, directed by Kenneth Branagh and produced by David Parfitt, who togethe...
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Not long ago Twelfth Night was regarded as Shakespeare's most serene comedy. Then the scholars remembered that the great tragedies came only a few years later, and began to see darkness, danger...
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Sir Peter Hall's production of Twelfth Night at the Play-house Theatre is remarkably pretty to look at. The dominant colours in the set are red and green: a tree with bright red apples, the win...
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Anyone who has kept up with the Shakespearian repertory over the past 15 years will have noticed a gradual erosion of the old boundary between the "dark comedies" and their popular count...
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It would be charming, but dishonest of me, to be complimentary about Twelfth Night at the Playhouse, the theatre you can never quite find near Charing Cross. There is simply no better Malvolio in the ...
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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 2...
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Peter Hall has directed a charming, intelligent and enjoyable production of Twelfth Night. These qualities, by themselves, may not satisfy the dwindling band of diehards pursuing novelty or deeply top...
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Others abide our question; thou art free. But for many years now, thou hast been anything but free. When, and how and why, did the modern vogue for buggering Shakespeare about start? More to the point...
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Surprisingly, and disappointingly, this production lacks direction. Its aim is plain, and deserving of applause; let Shakespeare speak, without superimposed interpretation. The play itself, from its f...
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At last, at last! The long series of disappointments has ended at last, and we have to thank Mr Daly for an evening of rich and keen, if not absolutely unmixed, enjoyment. The performance of Twelfth N...
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In its potted history of the Playhouse Theatre, the programme boasts that 1988 was the year in which "Jeffrey Archer, politician, novelist and playwright, acquires the controlling interest in t...
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Although Twelfth Night is Shakespeare's most sexually subversive and ambivalent comedy, most modern directors steer clear of its erotic potential. So it proves in Ian Judge's jovial new ...
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Part of what makes young Emma Fielding, the RSC's new Viola in Twelfth Night, so captivating is that she is made up of contrasts. She is elfin, tiny, vulnerable, with vast eyes; and yet she is ...
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No one can work an audience better than Desmond Barrit: he is to engaging camp what a butter mountain is to butter. Whether as Toad in Wind in the Willows or as Brazen in The Recruiting Officer, this ...
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What a delight Ian Judge's production more than compensates for the weird concoction—Orsino's court as Dartmouth Naval College, if you please—that masqueraded as Twelfth Ni...
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With its cute Warwickshire street scenes (John Gunter) and lush orchestral underpinning (Nigel Hess), Ian Judge's production of Twelfth Night has all the signs of a number one tourist attractio...
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On the main Stratford stage, 'Doctor Feelgood' (Motto: 'Here's some Shakespeare, it won't hurt a bit') strikes again. The director Ian Judge has become the RS...
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In the following excerpt, Craik comments on Twelfth Night in performance, focusing his attention on various theatrical interpretations of setting, costume, character, and scene.
The following selec...
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In the following essay, Berry examines the evolution of Twelfth Night in production, describing a move from the festive and comic stagings of nineteenth and early twentieth-century productions to the ...
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For 1893 Daly determined to surpass all his previous Shakespearean accomplishments: in Twelfth Night he found stuff that appealed with extraordinary intensity to his "creative" instincts...
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In the following essay, Billington presents a stage history of Twelfth Night, highlighting notable productions and performances, as well as critical reaction to both.
Twelfth Night may be Shakespea...
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Granville-Barker was a noted actor, playwright, director, and critic who, in his productions of Shakespeare's plays, emphasized simplicity in staging, set design, and costume. In the following ...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1937, Farjeon comments on several issues associated with the staging of Twelfth Night in the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries.
In the He...
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In the following excerpt, Sprague examines the handling of stage business in various productions of Twelfth Night.
The fact that this most delightful of Shakespeare's comedies was on the boa...
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In the following essay, Marsh discusses his 1951 staging of Twelfth Night in the Antipodes, focusing on the elements of characterization and visual presentation as they relate to the tone of the play....
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In the following essay, originally published in 1966, Brown investigates differing approaches to set design and character portrayal in Twelfth Night
After the first dozen Twelfth Night's the...
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In the essay below, Brown illuminates issues of casting, set design, and stage business in Twelfth Night, and comments on selected stagings of the play.
Twelfth Night is a paradoxical play. It is b...
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In the following essay, Berry examines the means by which Shakespeare manipulates audience perceptions of the characters in Twelfth Night.
Let the claret which Shakespeare drank, as we know, on exp...
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Presumably Shakespeare's contemporaries had no difficulty in knowing just how to take Twelfth Night and the other romantic comedies. But it has not always been so. In the next age that indefati...
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It is only fair to say of the new production of Twelfth Night: or, What You Will that some of our best critics have found it an occasion of great merit. They have found in it a deal of sweet enchantme...
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If Twelfth Night has ever received a New York production in which the acting level was higher or the staging more vital, it has not been in the memory of my generation. There are many to thank for thi...
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With a Presidential campaign behind us and preparedness ahead, with Europe's capitals in flames and war spreading like an insane octopus all over the habitable globe, Broadway takes time off fo...
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"A Great while ago the world began" and ever since men and women have been making their own dream worlds while poets, who set boundaries to dreams, show what may happen on that far Illyr...
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The best criticism I have heard of Mr. Hugh Hunt's production of Twelfth Night—with which the Old Vic make a welcome return to their old home in the Waterloo Road—was contained in...
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Towards the close of 1601, or perhaps a little earlier, a new play named Twelfe Night Or what you will, was announced on the placards of the Blackfriars Theatre. It was by the most popular playwright ...
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At any revival of Twelfth Night—frequent though they are, there are not enough of them for my liking—I bring with me a bristle of anxious question-marks. "Look here," says ...
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For some years before the war there was one theatre in England, and perhaps only one, which could be confidently relied upon to produce Shakespeare for Shakespeare's sake—the Old Vic in ...
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In the following essay, Hunt explores the directorial issues that informed his production ofTwelfth Night,focusing in particular on balancing the play's lyrical and comic elements, setting and ...
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It seemed fair to expect a great deal of a Twelfth Night produced by John Gielgud and containing a Malvolio by Laurence Olivier, a Viola by Vivien Leigh. This opening production at Stratford is, of co...
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There is a certain lack of heart about this elegant and well-paced production. The play (as Johnson very mildly put it) 'exhibits no just picture of life,' and we cannot expect to have o...
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Sir Laurence Olivier's interpretative resource is such that there was no guessing beforehand how he would choose to treat Malvolio; and the choice actually made—whether or not given thea...
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Malvolio, Olivia's steward in that Illyrian world of May, has been many people on many stages: I have seen him as a sombre precisian, an icy Cardinal in reduced circumstances, a blend of bullfr...
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The new Stratford season which opened last week gives every promise of being extremely interesting. In contrast to last year the Directors have gathered a powerful cast to support the leading players,...
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Even Nature combined with the Memorial Theatre to make this production of Twelfth Night an auspicious occasion and held back her blossom and fragrance until it had settled down. I saw the play in the ...
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Give Tyrone Guthrie a trap door and he is as happy as two larks. In Twelfth Night, which opened in the new Festival Theatre last evening, he has a heavy, thumping trap door in the center of the platfo...
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The numerous audience at the Star Theatre last evening looked upon a representation of one of Shakespeare's loveliest comedies, in which good judgment, taste, and imagination were seconded by a...
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The fifth summer of the Shakespeare Festival Theatre of Canada is notable, not only because the most unique and exciting theatre in North America has moved from a temporary tent to a beautiful permane...
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After four very successful years in a tent, the Shakespeare Festival at Stratford, Ontario, is now housed in an exciting new theatre. From the outside, with its circular scalloped roof fluting into de...
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In the world of the cinema, the pundits are fond of telling us, a technical advance has usually been accompanied by a backslide in imagination and intelligence. I hope it won't turn out to be t...
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I sometimes wonder what would happen if our bright young directors took the same impertinent liberties with the work of other dramatists which they now invariably take with Shakespeare. Early Noà...
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What a rib-tickling, refreshing Twelfth Night Peter Hall has conjured up for the second production of the Stratford season; a production that is smooth and gay and brimming with new ways to play old t...
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Twelfth Night has not a 'personal' title, and it hardly seems to have a central character, prominent or retired, unless we follow, as most star actors and modern productions do, the thea...
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It is always interesting to see a successful production revived with a different cast, and from Peter Hall's 1958 Stratford Twelfth Night only Dorothy Tutin, Patrick Wy-mark and Ian Holm remain...
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The revival of his 1958 production of Twelfth Night shows Peter Hall settling more comfortably than before on the throne of the Stratford Memorial Theatre. And it looks like being a good reign. When t...
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I Wish I could quote the whole of Hazlitt's analysis of the character of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, the whole of Agate's Brief Chronicle of Miss Jean Forbes-Robertson's V...
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Twelfth Night was the first of the productions that I saw this year, and on it I began to form the general impressions that I am recording here. I had seen the production two years ago, when it left m...
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This review was first published in the New York Tribune on 19 November 1884.
There is an uncertainty of dramatic drift in the comedy of the Twelfth Night—a kind of whimsical recklessness, su...
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For the Christmas season (up only until February 1) the Stratford Company bring into the Aldwych the Twelfth Night from the 1958 and 1960 seasons. The production is one of Mr. Peter Hall's, and...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1966, Hall describes his handling of Twelfth Night on the stage, commenting that it is "impossible to cut a word" of the play.
It is im...
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Clifford Williams, who directed the Royal Shakespeare's vastly successful Comedy of Errors has now tackled Twelfth Night on similar lines, presenting it as a hard-edged almost Italianate comedy...
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Columns are to architecture what melody is to music,' says Stendhal somewhere on his travels through Italy, and would have been pleased with both in the first minutes of Twelfth Night at Stratf...
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I used, in the primeval years, to attend a parish council meeting with a member who was so like Ian Holm's Malvolio that when this actor appeared in the Royal Shakespeare Company's Twelf...
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Clifford Williams directed a joyous Comedy of Errors a few years back and more recently extracted much hilarity from Marlowe's Jew of Malta. His Twelfth Night (Stratford-upon-Avon), altogether ...
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An heroic Sir Toby, a grimly disenchanted Feste, a Snudge-like Malvolio, and a Viola who strides boyfully around Illyria with the bemusement of a twentieth-century Alice in a medieval rabbit warren: t...
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Nothing that I had heard or read suggested that Mr. Clifford Williams' production of Twelfth Night was a good one. It seemed that he was trying to repeat his success with The Comedy of Errors b...
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Having shown Troilus and Cressida through the eyes of Thersites, John Barton now gives us Feste's version of Twelfth Night: and again the fool proves himself the best guide to the play.
This...
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Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek sit collapsed, their eyes rheumy with retrospection, while Feste, as he sings 'What is love?' Tis not hereafter', watches them with tender ...
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Irving had far too strong a personality for Malvolio. To the best of my recollection his Malvolio was distinctly a gentleman, not a buffoon; he was dignified, not heavy. It was inconceivable that that...
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Devotees of the spectacular, or for that matter of pantomime and magic spangles, must have been especially pleased by the light, fantastic style devised this year at Stratford for Pericles and The Win...
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For the young lovers in Twelfth Night the last scene brings them all their hearts desire. Twins are reunited, boys turn out to be girls, a double marriage is arranged. Then the mood is interrupted...
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But tell me true' asks Feste of Malvolio 'are you not mad indeed or doyou but counterfeit? A strange emphasis, and not, I think, one which many actors would employ of their own accord. I...
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When after 50 years of playgoing you cast your eye down a program of Twelfth Night, pick out the characters of Orsino, Feste, Maria, Aguecheek, Malvolio, Viola, and Olivia, and conclude that you have ...
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Substantially recast since its first appearance a year ago, John Barton's Twelfth Night arrives at the Aldwych having undergone one of those transformations that often overtake productions on t...
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If we're to believe Simon Gray, who reviewed it for the NS from Stratford last year, John Barton's Twelfth Night was a notably gloomy business, dominated by a Feste so black and brooding...
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A Freak Thunderstorm on the second night of the London showing of John Barton's revival of Twelfth Night at least ensured one experienced the production in a way denied the many enthusiasts who...
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The penultimate production of the season—Twelfth Night—was awaited with interest and perhaps some trepidation, in view of the published announcements that it was to be linked with the la...
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In the following essay, Sinden analyzes his performance as Malvolio for Barton's 1969-70 production of Twelfth Night.
Why is it so difficult to record in words a theatrical performance? Crit...
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The programme quotes R. D. Laing on Jill, a distorting mirror to herself, who has to distort herself to appear undistorted to herself. You can make any number of such games from Twelfth Night "...
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Twelfth Night was produced on July 8th 1884, Londoners were enduring a heat wave and those of them who made up the audience at the Lyceum were inclined to be as sultry as the night. Irving had spared ...
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Peter Gill made his name as a director with his meticulously realistic productions of D. H. Lawrence; yet paradoxically his Stratford production of Twelfth Night (his first for the RSC) seems curiousl...
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The main intention of Peter Gill's production is inscribed on the back wall of William Dudley's bare set: the figure of Narcissus gazing down into his pool.
Never has Illyria been mor...
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Best To make clear at once that the Royal Shakespeare Company's new production of Twelfth Night at Stratford is entirely enjoyable, even to one who found their last version, especially in its s...
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Peter Gill's beautifully clear production of Twelfth Night for the RSC at Stratford is played against a sketch of Narcissus gazing at himself in a pool. And throughout the play, the precision o...
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For the seasoned playgoer any production of Twelfth Night has to compete with invincible memories, and it will be a long time before John Barton's treatment of the play a few years ago finds an...
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Even though it had little serious competition, this production by Peter Gill struck me as far and away the RSC's best offering at Stratford last year. And, re-staged for London by Colin Cook, t...
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One only has to look at the set to know what Peter Gill thinks of most of the characters in the Twelfth Night he's directed for the RSC. There, on a rust-coloured wall, is a sketch of Narcissus...
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The Twelfth Night that has come from Stratford to London is the test of my claim that this is a great era of theatre. Here is the greatest and yet, in some ways, the most difficult of English comedies...
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Twelfth Night was Peter Gill's first directing assignment for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and is unlikely to be his last. Stratford needs this kind of work, easy of access to a theatrically ...
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David Jones's staging of Twelfth Night proved to be a beauty—one of the lightest, most luminous and elegant things to be seen in Stratford for some years.
David Jones is one of the tw...
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Irving's Twelfth Night was unfortunately short-lived. At the end of the first London performance (July 8, 1884), the unbelievable happened: when Irving stepped forward to deliver his customary ...
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Over at the Festival Theatre, David Jones of the Royal Shakespeare Company directed an enjoyable Twelfth Night, straightforward and sunny, a production that left the more sombre areas unexploredȁ...
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The Twelfth Night directed by David Jones at the Festival Theatre was thoroughly agreeable Shakespeare, lively, full-bodied, and a pleasure to look at. Dressed by Susan Benson in costumes that were ne...
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Short of making it into a musical, which amazingly seems never to have been tried, there's not a lot that even the most wilful or determined of directors can do with Twelfth Night. Unusually, a...
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For some time now our directors have been conscientiously darkening what used to be regarded as Shakespeare's happiest comedy. We have had glum and scabrous Festes, and we have had Malvolios so...
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In this new production Terry Hands seems to be seeking to direct us to a reappraisal of the traditional view of this piece as a simple Christmas divertissement, and in so doing gives us a production w...
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Illyria has often been a strange place; yet though it is a world just over the horizon, it must not be fantasticated beyond belief. Terry Hands joined the various directors who have used the secondary...
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John Napier's set was … the most striking feature of the new Twelfth Night, … it consisted of a sloping platform with bare trees in large square tubs and snow on the ground; the s...
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David Mamet's lighthearted production of Twelfth Night at the Circle Repertory Company features two outstanding Shakespearean performances—by Lindsay Crouse in the pivotal role of Viola ...
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Nowhere in the western world, I daresay, do the classics fare as badly as in our theater. I don't know whether it is the teaching or the learning—more properly the lack of teaching and t...
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Twelfth Night, which opened last week at the Circle Repertory, under the direction of the dramatist David Mamet, is deliberately informal and moves briskly from beginning to end. Every moment is clear...
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"I'll serve this Duke." In those simple words the bereaved and shipwrecked Viola, who must begin life anew, reveals something more than her intention, because she also reveals the...
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David Mamet's production of Twelfth Night opened with the sound of a distant flute. Orsino and Curio were leaning against a wall, and were lost in thought. The flute stopped and all was still a...
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Quite a deal of poison has been seeping into this play over the past few years, but John Caird's production is the first I have seen that projects Twelfth Night as an all-out dark comedy.
Th...
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So, Twelfth Night (RSC Stratford) is, in fact a revenge play, in which the Clown's resentment of Malvolio provides Daniel Massey as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Gemma Jones as Maria, and John Thaw ...
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John Caird's production of Twelfth Night opens in an atmosphere of brooding impasse. Torpid thunder rumbles intermittently, achieving downpour only at the play's end—cued by Feste...
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After six years with the RSC John Caird, one of its four resident directors has staged his first major production in the main Stratford house; and it is surely a good augury for the future that this i...
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John Caird's reading of Twelfth Night was extremely serious, especially in interpreting the lovers. Instead of quoting the usual tedious contemporary parallels and literary criticism, the progr...
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John Caird's production of Twelfth Night is a delight. It is a triumph of stagecraft, of acting and direction; interestingly it is a triumph despite its own melancholy view of Shakespeare...
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Ever since Derek Jacobi's Cyrano spent the last act of that great production trying to keep his head above a sea of fallen leaves, the RSC has been obsessed by autumnal melancholy. Twelfth Nigh...
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The set of Twelfth Night was part ruined garden, part graveyard. A vast autumnal tree overshadowed (for Orsino's court) a pair of rusting gates and (for Olivia's house) a mortuary chapel...
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In the following essay, Wanamaker discusses her performance as Viola in John Caird's Production of Twelfth Night.
I had played Viola some ten years before John Caird's Stratford produ...
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In the chronicle of the theatrical week the Viola of Ada Rehan holds the first place; in the record of her artistic career that lovely embodiment of one of Shakespeare's simplest but most beaut...
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Despite the sultry midday heat, all was astir in Central Park. At the Delacorte Theater, seemingly a world away, the actor F. Murray Abraham strode about the stage in straw hat, T-shirt and shorts rec...
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Given Wilford Leach's record for brightening so many al fresco evenings with Shakespeare, as well as The Pirates of Penzance and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, anticipation about Twelfth Night was...
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"What country, friends, is this?" asks the ship-wrecked Viola in the second scene of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
"This is Illyria, lady," replies the cap...
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Is it cynicism, insensitivity, or merely total benightedness that prompts the New York Shakespeare Festival to mount the kind of travesty of Twelfth Night now on view in Central Park? The subtitle Wha...
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The current RSC production of The Merchant of Venice at Stratford, directed by Bill Alexander, designed by Kit Surrey, lit by Robert Bryan and starring Antony Sher, grapples with the savagery of the p...
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In the main house at Stratford the Royal Shakespeare Company presents … Twelfth Night. Bill Alexander has chosen a specific Aegean setting, with mock-Mykonos architecture by Kit Surrey and supe...
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I was once taken to task for describing Twelfth Night as the most elusive of Shakespeare's comedies, but Bill Alexander's new production confirms me in my opinion. Much about it feels ri...
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Stratford's new main-stage Twelfth Night, directed by Bill Alexander, has one of those sets (here by Kit Surrey) that do most of the acting before the players have a chance to take up residence...
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Shakespeare may have had the taste of olives in his mouth when he wrote Twelfth Night. Viola, Malvolio, Olivia not only have an anagrammatical closeness of sound, but during the play they are lovingly...
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Illyria this time has moved down to the shores of nineteenth century Greece, with cobalt blue skies, white blocks of houses, arched narrow streets, splashing fountains and open-air benches on both sid...
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In the excerpt below, Donno traces the progress of the play's dramatic action and discusses the principal characters. Although she acknowledges some discrepancies and inconsistencies in the sto...
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In the following essay, Green discusses the portrayal of love and gender in Twelfth Night, maintaining that while the play exposes the narcissism and self-centeredness of masculine love, its ending&#x...
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In the essay below, Dash stresses the similarities between Viola and Olivia as young, single, upper-class women who, for a brief period, challenge patriarchal restraints on female independence. She al...
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In the following essay, Bryant asserts that Twelfth Night is an iconoclastic work that challenges the reassuring conventions of romantic comedy.
Ever since the time of the Romantics, high praise fo...
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In the essay that follows, Hartwig contends that Feste helps illuminate the discrepancy between human will and Providence in Twelfth Night and proposes that Feste's enigmatic final song emphasi...
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In the following excerpt, Wilcher asserts that, in contrast to the more conventional clowns of Shakespeare's earlier comedies, Feste is a more fully human character.
I
Since Francis Douce&#x...
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In the essay below, Greif traces the evolution of Feste in twentieth-century productions ofTwelfth Night. She contends that Feste has become an alienated figure, who is profoundly aware of human frail...
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In the following essay, Levin maintains that Viola has an unromantic view of love, a remarkable ability to handle crises, and a willingness to manipulate both Olivia and Orsino to achieve her goals.
...
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In the essay below, Girard evaluates Orsino's and Olivia's notions of human love and characterizes both characters as pseudo-narcissists. The critic maintains that in their twin obsessio...
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In the following essay, Astington explores the characterization of Malvolio in terms of the tension between paganism, Puritanism, and traditional Christian viewpoints in Twelfth Night. The critic comp...
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In the essay below, Malcolmson explores the links between gender and social class in Twelfth Night.
When Sebastian enters the last scene of Twelfth Night and begins to untangle the various intricac...
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In the following essay, Mangan focuses on Shakespeare's extensive reworking of themes, characters, and situations used in Twelfth Night, noting that Shakespeare revised his previous attitudes t...
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In the essay below, originally published in 1974, Hasler analyzes the influence of Shakespeare's earlier comedies on the last scene of Twelfth Night.
The final resolution of Twelfth Night ev...
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In the following essay, Jardine examines the treatment of crossdressing in Twelfth Night, as well as the relationship between economic dependency and sexual availability in early modern England.
Vi...
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In the following essay, Shapiro investigates Twelfth Night's exploration of sexual identity within the context of Elizabethan theatrical portrayals of sexual and emotional intimacy between men ...
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In the essay below, originally published in 1976, Levin compares and contrasts the main plot and subplot of Twelfth Night, describing Malvolio as the star of the underplot.
The kind of comedy that ...
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In the following essay, Brown contends that Twelfth Night has two plots, one ruled by Olivia and one ruled by Orsino. These plots, argues Brown, are dramatized differently and correspond to two distin...
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In the essay that follows, Cahill examines the way in which the plot and subplot of Twelfth Night operate on both psychological and social levels, stating that the main plot suggests a fantastical rea...
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In the following excerpt, Warren and Wells survey Twelfth Night's setting, sources, themes, and major characters. The critics' discussion is often informed by insights gleaned from twent...
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In the following essay, Elam uses Viola's reference to her cross-dressing, in which she states she will play the role of a eunuch, as an entry point for discussing the cultural history of castr...
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In the following essay, Kerrigan studies Twelfth Night within the context of the Renaissance conventions regarding secrecy and gossip, finding that gossip is a means—both in early modern societ...
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In the following essay, Hurworth explores the representation of deception, or gulling, in Twelfth Night. Hurworth highlights the links between criminal deception as it is described in Elizabethan narr...
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In the following essay, Dean analyzes Twelfth Night as the union of Renaissance Platonism and Augustinian theology, contending that Shakespeare employed the device of twins in order to explore the not...
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In the following essay, Willbern relates Malvolio and his downfall to the play's theme of festivity.
Malvolio, that humorless steward, sick of merrymakers and self-love, seems almost a stran...
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In the following review of Trevor Nunn's 1996 film version of Twelfth Night, Lyons describes the effort as undeniably successful, and finds that although the film teases the boundaries of ...
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In the following review, Stearns assesses the production of Twelfth Night directed by Nicholas Hytner, which featured Helen Hunt as Viola. Stearns describes the production as a whole as lavish but not...
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In the following review of Nicholas Hytner's Twelfth Night, Brustein contends that the production failed to explore the play's deeper issues and complexities. Brustein applauds Helen Hun...
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In the following review, Merwin offers a mixed appraisal of Nicholas Hytner's production of Twelfth Night. The critic argues that Hytner and stage designer Bob Crowley failed to create an atmos...
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In the following essay, Magro and Douglas analyze the treatment of gender issues in Trevor Nunn's 1996 film adaptation of Twelfth Night, and maintain that Nunn's production suppresses th...
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In the following essay, Osborne studies the ways in which Trevor Nunn's film adaptation of Twelfth Night adopts a heavy-handed approach to film editing and textual rearrangement in order to pro...
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In the following essay, Schwartz presents Twelfth Night as an example of “festive” comedy, in which the atmosphere of merriment expresses a vision of human life that focuses on life�...
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In the following essay, Hartman examines Shakespeare's use of poetic language, punning, and wordplay in Twelfth Night.
1
Writing about Shakespeare promotes a sympathy with extremes. One such...
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In the following essay, Tromly suggests that folly is a positive force in Twelfth Night, one that allow the characters to come to terms with life by learning to accept “delusion, vulnerability,...
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In the following essay, Logan claims that Twelfth Night—despite its ostensible depiction of a festive and happy resolution—contains glimpses of the darker side of human desire.
In a r...
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In the following essay, Slights maintains that Twelfth Night illustrates the thematic principal of reciprocity as the foundation of successful human relationships.
Like Shakespeare's other r...
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In the following essay, Tan discusses the relationship of music to Twelfth Night's theme of sexual ambivalence.
The Elusive Nature of Twelfth Night
Taken as Shakespeare's farewell to ...
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In the following essay, Forbes examines Shakespeare's vivid character portraits in Twelfth Night, including the self-assured and charming Viola, the courageous and forthright Sebastian, the nar...
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In the following essay, Champion argues that Twelfth Night features some of Shakespeare's most well-developed comic characters whose true but hidden identities are revealed over the course of t...
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In the following essay, Lewis contends that Antonio, rather than Viola, is the moral center of Twelfth Night, but acknowledges that the play is principally concerned with Viola's moral developm...
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In the following essay, Cahill offers a psychoanalytic reading of Malvolio in Twelfth Night, highlighting his narcissism and painful identity crisis as well as his thwarted and obsessive desires for s...
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In the following excerpted review of the 2001 to 2002 Royal Shakespeare Company season at Stratford-upon-Avon, Jackson observes the erotic and decadent qualities of director Lindsay Posner's st...
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In the following review of the 2002 Holderness Theater Company production of Twelfth Night directed by Rebecca Holderness, Gross praises the minimalist staging of the play and calls attention to its f...
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In the following review of Brian Kulick's 2002 staging of Twelfth Night at the open-air Delacorte Theatre in New York City's Central Park, Brustein contends that Kulick and his star-stud...
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In the following excerpted review of the 2002 Donmar Warehouse Theatre staging of Twelfth Night directed by Sam Mendes, Mullan contends that an overemphasis on the erotic and sensual aspects of the dr...
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In all of Shakespeare's plays, there is a definitive style present, a style he perfected. From his very first play (The Comedy of Errors) to his very last (The Tempest), he uses unique symbolism and d...
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True Love, does it really exist? This has been a universally contradicted question since the dawn of Mankind. For eons humans have believed, yet ironically there have been no scientific proofs of such...
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In the midst of a male-dominant society - sixteenth century Elizabethan England - Shakespeare portrays women with strengths at least equal to those of men. By so doing, he opens the door for them ...
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Generosity and courtesy are both traits that are difficult to refuse. Because generous and courteous people earn respect through their actions, successful relationships often result. In William Shak...
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The distinguished philosopher Nietzsche in many ways summaries life and existence accurately with his statement "there is no feast without cruelty." This is seen to be the case in William Shakespeare'...
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Soliloquy means a dramatic form of discourse in which a character talks to himself or herself, or revealing his or her thoughts without addressing a listener. In the play Twelfth Night, known as the m...
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Feste is a jester, clown or fool who moves between the homes of Olivia and Orsino. During the Renaissance, monarchs and some noble families had fools or clowns in their households as entertainers- to ...
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O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou...
In William Shakespeare's play of Twelfth Night love is one of the main themes and therefore imagery of love accompanies it. As the characters fall in...
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Twelfth Night is a typical Elizabethan style of romantic comedy that Shakespeare has developed with great success. Disguised characters and remote settings are typical features of plays such as these....
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Like many other playwrights, Shakespeare used disguises in appearances to create conflicts among characters, make them seem confused and ridiculous to bring out audience's laughter. In his comedy "Twe...
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Twelfth night starts off with Orsino, Duke of Illyria, talking to Curio about his love for Olivia. He compares his love to two different things: Music and the sea. He is telling his friends about how...
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In a book on Twelfth Night, Dr. Leslie Hotson suggested that the play was written to compliment an Italian nobleman, Virginio Orsino, Duke of Bracciano, in a court entertainment given for him on Tw...
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Women are the weaker sex; they say one thing but mean another, they are indecisive about what they want, they over annalise things, and they flock to the bathroom like lemmings. The play "Twelfth N...
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I do not believe that I was lead into such trickery by people that were supposedly my friends. They made me look like such an idiot in front of the one whom I love. I am going to get them all back i...
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William Shakespeare, arguably the most important writer in all of English
Literature, is certainly the most influential playwright of the English Renaissance. Born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon i...
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Self love and false love are revealed in Shakespeare's play `Twelfth Night." Shakespeare exposes love through emotional exaggeration, by which he raises his imaginary world above that of the ordinar...
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William Shakespeare is the most well-known British author in the history of literature. He has covered almost every genre in his plays, including tragedy, horror, historic fiction, fantasy, romance, a...
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The first act of Twelfth Night plays a significant role in introducing the main characters, main conflict, main plot, a little about the sub-plot, the theme of love and the nature of topsy-turvy . W...
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Twelfth Night contains excellent examples of many types of people. The greatest illustration is the many dynamic characters. A dynamic character is a person in a story, or play, that changes his origi...
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The play Twelfth Night is set in a Elizabethan country household in a place called Illyria. Illyria is a fictional place. Although the setting felt familiar to the audience, the name Illyria gave it...
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Hello, my name is Viola, now being a wife of the noble Duke of Illyria, Orsino . I married him on a day which was filled with surprise and jubilant . First, Olivia, thinking that I were a man ( I w...
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Deceit is a main theme in Twelfth Night, since most of the characters in the play are engaged in either deceiving themselves or in deliberately, or accidentally deceiving others.
After losing her...
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The nature of the medium of theatre means that everything portrayed by Shakespeare is an illusion 'played upon a stage'; the play is a fantastical arena where appearance is not limited by the constrai...
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Paradise: state or place of perfect happiness, heaven, innocence.
Illyria- a name that sounds like it should belong in a book by C.S Lewis, the place where Shakespeare's `Twelfth Night' is set, full ...
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The Role of Gender and Appearance in Twelfth Night
In some cases appearance and gender can tell everything about what kind of a person someone is. Gender plays an important role in Twelfth Night beca...
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In Act 2 scene 5 the mood is very lighthearted and is full of theatrical comedy, we find Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and their friend Fabian hidden away as they await Malvolio to stumble upon the letter supp...
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Love has become very dominate in society today because love has come to conquer everything. Types of love in society are, romantic love, this is the love between lovers, then familial love, which come...
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Like most fairy tales that commence with "Once upon a time," William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy where a basic conflict is eventually resolved so that all the protagonists live "h...
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The Play Twelfth Night or, What you will by William Shakespeare was written in 1601. The play takes place in Illyria and is a comedy written in the spirit of the celebration of the Twelve Nights of C...
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In Twelfth Night we see different types of humour. There is the witty word play exchanged by Viola and Feste, the bawdy humour of Sir Toby, the foolishness of Sir Andrew, self-importance of Malvolio, ...
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The content of this essay is about how Shakespeare portrays Malvolio and the methods he uses to do this. It also mentions how Shakespeare intends the audience to react to Malvolio at different stages ...
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Many people wear masks to disguise their feelings, either intentionally or subconsciously, and in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, the characters do just that. Viola, a twin who seems to have lost...
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Filled with self-consciousness, love, and overconfidence, the characters from Twelfth Night hide their true selves, weaknesses, and feelings. The disguises that they have put on are to conceal their ...
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In the Shakespearean play Twelfth Night there appears the character Malvolio who is seen as a social `reject' whom a `trick' is played upon later in the play. Shakespeare portrays Malvolio as a charac...
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Twelfth Night, a love comedy is one of Shakespeare's most amazing plays. Shakespeare analyses human nature, particularly our ability to love through the creation of the imaginary land, Illyria and man...
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Act three scene four, the central scene of the play is one of the two longest scenes in the entire play. In this scene, the main plot and sub plot merged together. We can see all characters are on the...
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Comedy means something farcical that can make people laugh. It is usually done for the purpose of entertainment. Throughout the whole play, Shakespeare creates comic effects to amuse his audience. In...
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While hard work and sacrifice can be greatly rewarded, selfishness and conceitedness are not. Twelfth Night, a play by William Shakespeare, features two characters, Malvolio and Viola, who serve thei...
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Feste is Olivia's professional jester, or fool. He receives payment to entertain, sing, and make satirical observations. This license allows him to freely speak his opinion. In Shakespeare's Twelft...
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Examine the Presentation of Orsino and his love in the play.
Orsino, Duke of Illyria has a prominent and pivotal role in Twelfth Night. Illyria his kingdom reflects aspects of Orsino's character and ...
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1. Title: Twelfth Night or What You Will
Author: William Shakespeare
Author's date: 1564-1616
Date of first performance: 1623, in the First Folio
Period of play: Elizabethan
Awards: /
Ma...
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"The thinker dies, but his thoughts are beyond the reach of destruction. Men are mortal, but ideas are immortal." This famous quote by William Lippman means that though all the great men are mortal bu...
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OLIVIA UNIFIES
In the play Twelfth Night, Olivia is the character who unites the three separate plots. She is involved in the love triangle between Viola and Duke Orsino. Olivia is the cause of Malvo...
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In every play, it is inevitable that the characteristics of some characters strongly parallel each other and Twelfth Night is no exception. The two characters, Orsino and Olivia, are stunningly simi...
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."..Self-proclaimed wits are usually not witty at all and it is this lack of self-knowledge that makes them fools," states Ben Knisley in his essay, "The Role of the Fool: Feste's Significance." If th...
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How much sympathy do you feel for Malvolio"
Malvolio is an incredibly negative person thought the play, he is not liked by anyone and he is very bossy and proud. This makes it exceptionally hard for...
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Twelfth Night Book Notes is a free study guide on Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. Browse the summary below:
Author Biography / Context of the Work
One-Page Plot Summary
...
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Shakespeare's plays are thought-provoking and complex texts that explore the human themes of romance, deceit, tragedy, and comedy, and revenge. These activity guides are designed by teachers for t...
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This series features classic Shakespeare retold with graphic color illustrations. Educators using the Dale-Chall vocabulary system adapted each title. Each 64 page book retains key phrases and quot...
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Thirty-five reproducible activities per guide reinforce basic reading and comprehension skills while teaching higher-order critical thinking. Also included are teaching suggestions, background note...
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Containing 11 reproducible exercises to maximize vocabulary development and comprehension skills, these guides include pre-and post-reading activities, story synopses, key vocabulary, and answer ke...
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Twelfth Night, Or, What You Will
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
Double Dating
Twelfth-Night's-Tempest
Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night Student Guide
