SOURCE: "A Star is Born: Feste on the Modern Stage," in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 1, Spring, 1988, pp. 61-78.

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 frailty and the transience of human existence.

All the characters in Twelfth Night are masqueraders—all imposters, self-deceivers, and counterfeiters, and all beguiled, to some degree, by the game of charades whirling around them. Only Feste the jester keeps his mask from slipping.¹ He alone remains inscrutable, a quality that has made his character particularly fascinating to our century. We are intrigued by ambiguities, obsessed with ironies, and bewitched by paradoxes. So it is natural that the modern theatre has drawn attention to Feste, and in him we have discovered our own key to Twelfth Night. Just as the...