SOURCE: "Directions for Twelfth Night," in Shakespeare's Plays in Performance, 1966. Reprint by St. Martin's Press, 1967, pp. 207-19.

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 there are still surprises, new guises for the old masterpiece. Directors colour it golden, russet, silver or white; blue for dreams, and sometimes pink; or they allow red and even purple to dominate. They can make it sound noisy as a carnival, or eager, or melodious, or quarrelsome like children; it can also be strained and nervous. In 1958, Peter Hall at Stratford-upon-Avon hung the stage with gauzes and contrived what The Times called a 'Watteauesque light'. And critics report that a year previously, at Stratford, Ontario, Tyrone Guthrie contrasted Feste and Malvolio in 'psychological terms', allowing the final song of the 'wind and rain' to...