Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Ralph Berry

Critical Essay by Ralph Berry

SOURCE: "The Season of Twelfth Night," Changing Styles in Shakespeare, George Allen & Unwin, 1981, pp. 109-19.

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 darker interpretation of modern directors.

Twelfth Night is the statutory comedy, as often as not, in a summer festival season. Any moderately dedicated playgoer must have seen it several times, and passed up many more chances. Like Hamlet, it tends to be absorbed into the general textures of the current theatre, and it is not usually associated with revolutionary productions. Moreover, it is not the focus of any great academic or theatrical debate. Its meaning is not in doubt: Twelfth Night is widely accepted as a supreme harmonizing of the romantic and the comic, sweet and astringent. The admirable production, then, is held...
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