Twelfth Night is a beloved Shakespearean comedy that showcases the playwright’s wit, humor, and talent for creating complex characters. The play tells the story of Viola, a young woman who disguises herself as a man in order to serve in the court of Duke Orsino. Along the way, she falls in love with the Duke while also attracting the attention of the Countess Olivia, who herself is caught in a love triangle with Viola’s male alter ego. Twelfth Night explores themes of love, gender, identity, and social class with a sense of playfulness that is rare in Shakespeare’s more serious works. Its memorable characters and witty dialogue have made it a favorite of audiences and performers alike, and its influence can be seen in everything from modern romantic comedies to popular music. Reading or watching Twelfth Night is a delightful and enriching experience that offers a unique window into Shakespeare’s genius and the culture of his time.
Here’s a simple game. Pick a play. Now pretend you’re doing a production where the gimmick is that it’s told from a different character’s point of view than normal. Which play do you pick, which character and how does the play change?
In most cases, this is going to create a much shorter play, because the character you pick will often have less stage time than the stars.
Maybe we do The Tempest told from the perspective of King Alonso? Coming home from a wedding he’s caught in a storm, shipwrecked on an island, his son drowned. Suddenly he’s standing face to face with Prospero, who he’s thought dead for the past fifteen years.
Or how about King Lear from Fool’s point of view? That could be interesting. Lot of different ways to interpret just how much Fool knows.
Twelfth Night from Malvolio’s POV?
Romeo and Juliet as seen by Lord Capulet? That could be interesting. There’s an almost fight scene, there’s him getting fined by the Prince, there’s a wedding to plan, a big dance party, an argument with his daughter, the death of Tybalt, the death of Juliet…
Winter’s Tale from Hermione’s point of view would make a funny comic short. Gets accused of adultery by her husband, goes to live with her friend who promises to fix everything. Cut to twelve years later when she says, “ok, he’s coming. Pretend you’re a statue.”
Yesterday I wrote about how it’s ok – nay, expected – that you know the ending of a Shakespeare play, but you still go see it again and again, because it’s about how they tell the story to get there. The only caveat to this rule would be those movies where it’s all about “the twist” (an M Night Shyamalan production). I noted that Shakespeare doesn’t really do twists.
But what if he did? I started wondering, which plays could be presented such that you don’t see it coming until the big reveal at the end.
Twelfth Night is an obvious example. What if we leave out Viola at the beginning, and pick it up with Cesario? Then you’ve got a classic romantic comedy where Cesario’s lusting after Orsino, Olivia is lusting after Cesario, Orsino’s lusting after Olivia but kind of really confused about his feelings for Cesario, and so on. Enter this guy Sebastian, who mentions a shipwreck and searching for his lost “sibling” and we think, “Aha! Twins! This will be good!” But then we get to the big finale where we find out Cesario is actually Viola. Cue happy endings and wedding music.
But I think it’s cheating to just do the easy comedy. Could we do it with a tragedy? I was wondering – if we took out all Iago’s soliloquies and behind the scenes machinations, could we make a twist out of it? Basically tell the whole story from Othello’s perspective, rather than Iago’s. He has to deal with his new father in law’s fury. He has to deal with his right-hand man Cassio getting into drunken bar fights. All the while he puts growing faith in loyal Iago, who hates to say this, but who thinks that maybe Cassio might be fooling around with Othello’s wife.
I think this one would be much harder to splice together, but imagine the payoff at the end? Suddenly Emilia comes out of nowhere to unveil that it was her husband all along? Then the husband f%^&*(ng STABS HER?! And then, when they catch him, he’s all, “Yup, not going to explain myself. At all. You get nothing.” That would be legendary.
Now I’m sad that knowing the real ending, I could never get to see how that would actually pay off, even if they made a movie exactly like that tomorrow.
This has more potential than I thought. What other plays could we twist? The only rule is that you can’t add more original content. If Shakespeare didn’t answer the question, we can’t answer it. We can’t, for instance, learn that it was actually Gertrude that killed her husband (or Ophelia). You have to stay as close the original material as possible, just mess with how the audience gets to see it.
Fun bit of Shakespeare Geekery on Reddit today when I spotted too late this “Tip of My Tongue” post:
In it there’s a specific scene in which all the characters repeat how they feel about each other a bunch of times with all of them stating how they feel affection for one of the people in the group who does not feel for them.
One of the characters may have an injured arm and I think one of them kept on ending the repeating cycle of lines with something like “and I for no man”
I think I remember one of the characters MIGHT have been a girl dressing up as a guy but I’m not completely sure
By the time I spotted this post somebody had replied, “Twelfth Night?” to which the original poster said, “Solved! That’s the one.” He even shot down suggestions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Much Ado About Nothing as not being the correct answer.
Astute geeks will no doubt see the problem. He is describing, to a T, that other cross-dressing romantic comedy, As You Like It. Orlando has entered with a broken arm, Rosalind is dressed as a boy, everybody declares their love for the wrong person, and Rosalind is the one who keeps “ending the repeating cycle of lines” with, “and I for no woman”:
SILVIUS
It is to be all made of sighs and tears;
And so am I for Phebe.
PHEBE
And I for Ganymede.
ORLANDO
And I for Rosalind.
ROSALIND
And I for no woman.
SILVIUS
It is to be all made of faith and service;
And so am I for Phebe.
PHEBE
And I for Ganymede.
ORLANDO
And I for Rosalind.
ROSALIND
And I for no woman.
It’s getting so you can’t tell one girl dressed as boy comedy from the next! 🙂
For No Shave November this year I did promise some update pictures, so here you go!
It’s Thanksgiving morning (though you’re no doubt seeing this on Friday), I’m in New England, and I’m waiting in the car before the big football game. It’s going to be record breaking cold out there.
None of my kids play football, mind you. One of my girls is a cheerleader. So I will be sitting in the stands, watching her stand on the sidelines. Our team’s not even really very good – I think I saw two wins this year.
All of this reminds me of a Shakespeare beard reference:
…you are now sailed into the north of my
lady’s opinion; where you will hang like an icicle
on a Dutchman’s beard, unless you do redeem it by
some laudable attempt either of valour or policy.
This one’s from Twelfth Night. One of Shakespeare’s better similes (…pause to recall high school English….tries to remember whether it is a simile or metaphor that uses like or as …. going with simile).
<time passes>
Ok, I spent about 15 minutes in the stands watching my daughter cheer and now I’m back in the car with a newfound appreciation for Dutchmen. Still not sure I’ve got icicles on my beard but man, those metal bleachers are cold. At least our team scored first.
So where were we? Ah yes icicles in Dutchmen’s beards. I’m not completely sure what the quote means – is an icicle in a Dutchmen’s beard something that he’s just so used to that he ignores it? Or is it an annoying thing that he wishes to get rid of? I take “sailed north” to mean “You’re gone, you’re out of her thoughts now until you go something to get back into them.”
Since Bardfilm sent me an article on the topic, I learned that it’s actually a reference to something specific, not just one of those hyperbolic hypotheticals, like “colder than various parts of a witch’s anatomy.”
For, the expedition of Bardendsz and Heemskerck which spent the winter of 1596/97 in the Arctic Circle appears to have appealed so strongly to the English imagination that references occur over a period of many years.
(Bardfilm, can you help me give proper credit for that quote? Even if I copy down random words that look like the right names I’m sure to get the format wrong.)
I still don’t fully understand the context (the article goes into a discussion of scientific discovery dating back to Galileo and the cuts over to Hamlet, but I didn’t make the connection back to Twelfth Night). I’m guessing that it means, “When these dudes decided to sail north, everybody thought that’s it, they’re done, they’re never coming back.” Then they actually did something important or learned something important, so when they returned those same people were all, “Dude, that was awesome.”
To my ear it sounds like, with a little shuffling of words, that “icicle in a Dutchman’s beard” could be looked at like a trophy. I imagine these guys, who everybody thought as good as dead from their own stupidity, suddenly bursting into the local tavern, beards all full of icicles, making it more like a trophy of an important journey well taken.
Maybe not my finest analysis but did I not mention I’m sitting in my car in the parking lot? I’m lucky I’ve got wifi.
Speaking of beards, I’m trying to be part of No Shave November this year to raise some money for cancer prevention awareness. This year I’m celebrating the holidays with three relatives in various stages of their own personal cancer battles. I hope none of you have to experience that. Please consider a donation if you haven’t already. Thanks as always for your continued support!
Finally, finally, my oldest gets to participate in a dedicated Shakespeare course this fall. I don’t have the title in front of me but it’s basically Shakespeare and Modern Film. Given that my bestest online Shakespeare pal is a dude whose actual name is “Bard Film” I can’t wait until she gets homework. (“Daddy, can I please do my own homework for once?” “It’s ok sweetie, Bardfilm and I have got this.”)
Anyway, we had to order textbooks and I see they’ll be studying Othello, Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night. Folger editions, for the curious.
Hmmm. Anybody else seeing a pattern there?
I’m calling it right now – I’m going to have my daughter watch O, 10 Things I Hate About You and She’s The Man before school starts because I’ll bet you anything that’s what they’ll be doing in class. I never thought I’d say this but I’m glad Hamlet’s not among her required texts. If they had her watching Lion King I don’t think I could stand it.
Here’s a simple game. Pick a play. Now pretend you’re doing a production where the gimmick is that it’s told from a different character’s point of view than normal. Which play do you pick, which character and how does the play change?
