(First, a word about the edition. A colleague of mine was appearing in an am-dram (but far from hum-drum) production of Twelfth Night. If the play were to be half as much fun as baiting his superstitions about The Scottish Play, then it would prove to be an entertaining evening. I didn’t know the text and I consider that, with Shakespeare, you need to have read the play beforehand, so you to know prithee from your privy and hence when to laugh at an appropriate or inappropriate place, depending on what sort of message you wish to convey to your theatre date (my message, by the way, no matter the play, is constant: come the interval, you will be treated to a command performance of my impression of a gin seeking missile). So I ordered the text on Amazon and, being somewhat cheap, went for the cheapest version that was a Penguin (keeping just this side of respectability). Plain cover, not the greatest type setting in the world and, I suspect, would go from ‘loved’ to ‘well loved’ to ‘foxed’ to ‘f***ed’ if you used it night after night in rehearsals, especially if you nursed the sort of crush on the girl playing Viola that results in sweaty palms. But, to be fair…two quid! You can’t even get a pint for two quid. I’d say it’s a bargain, the glossary alone is worth the money, it’s like a phrase book for time travellers but, even better, it allows one to choose an Elizabethan word a day to re-introduce into common usage. Tomorrow it shall be ‘fadge’ (meaning: turn out). So that this would be a fairly thrifty way of stocking up on essential plays, broadening your Elizabethan tongue and shocking the hell out of people you are in conversation with.)

Twelfth Night is a comedy. We know this because it has mistaken identity, confused lovers, a clown and a woman disguising herself as a lad (slap thigh) with hilarious consequences. Reading through, I found it pretty dry stuff. This play, as the title suggests, is supposed to be performed after Christmas. Revelry, to be sure, occurs. Indeed one of the characters is so committed to revelry that if he were around today he’d be the darling of the tabloids and have his own suite at the Priory. There are the other hallmarks of a Shakespear play, such as wonderful language and the still-fresh delight of reading a passage and finding, hiding there, a phrase now in common usage but, before spoken at The Globe, never heard. There’s also obvious efforts to please the rabble (obviously I loved those bits). So I dutifully read it and trundled off to the theatre.

Revelation ensued. Here was the play as it was meant to be. The words, not tethered to 100% recycled paper by a printer in Croydon but given full, firm and flavoursome body by enthusiastic actors who strutted and fretted upon the stage for the amusement (and we were amused) of a sold out theatre who sweated and chortled in our seats in the tiny, crowded, over-hot theatre, loving every second. This was alchemy, they had turned print into gold – something I thought only publishers did.

My mistake had been to read the play in silence. These are words for speaking aloud. If you read it alone, read aloud, and do the voices; it makes a world of difference*. Got a family? Great, now is the time to exploit your children, get them to speak the lines aloud. Only got boys? No problem, tell them that in Elizabethan theatre, men played the women’s roles too. This will mean that your kid gets a head start in the works of the greatest dramatist on the planet, and, when he tells his mates at school the next day, gets the cool nick-name ‘TV’ for the rest of his life!

Read it aloud, even if it means putting on a performance to an audience of you. Because, it is true - the play’s the thing.

*On reading aloud on public transport: tricky. At best, you’re going to look like a nutter. At worst, sinister. All depends on your choice of material. Avoid erotica. ( )

One of the more enjoyable comedies for me, full of all the "usual" plot devices: mistaken identities, cross-dressing women, shipwrecks...the works. ( )

För ett tag sedan var jag inte så glad i Shakespeare, efter att ha läst den misogyna The Taming of the Shrew. Det har släppt nu: Likt den är Twelfth Night stundtals ganska obehaglig, men grundtonen är i betydligt ljusare: Syskonen Viola och Sebastian separeras i ett skeppsbrott; båda tror att den andre är död. Viola bestämmer sig att klä sig i manskläder och söka arbete (jo, jag undrar också) hos hertigen Orsino. Han använder henne för att uppvakta sin kärlek Olivia. Som man kan förvänta sig blir det ett triangeldrama, dessutom med en korrekt konstruerad triangel där var och en är kär i någon och älskas av någon – Viola älskar hertigen som älska Olivia som älskar Viola. I bihandlingen är Olivias late farbror et consortes ute efter att hämnas på Olivias självgode och allvarlige hovmästare efter att denne försökt få tyst på dem när de rumlat runt. Till slut dyker Sebastian upp och förväxlingar äger programenligt rum innan han kan hjälpa till att bryta triangeln och ur den skaka fram två par.

På nästan alla plan är det mycket tillfredsställande – dialogen är rapp och bjuder på allt man kan begära i form av ordvändningar och innuendo (i Wordsworthutgåvan förklarat i en praktisk notapparat), konstruktionen rimlig, handlingen glad och uppsluppen. Fast inte allt igenom sockersöt; gycklet med Malvolio drivs längre än vad som kan sägas vara rimligt och ett par bifigurer har nog svårt att vara riktigt nöjda med slutet, där de bara lämnas hängande utan att egentligen ha fått ut nånting av deltagandet. Leken med könsrollerna är lätt – andra författare skulle förmodligen ha brett på än mer – men onekligen där. Och med tanke på hur ett av de andra förhållandena gestaltas är det faktiskt inte konstigt att tolka in ett homosexualitetstema– inte mindre pikant när man betänker att alla roller från början spelades av män och pojkar.

Till syvende och sist är det en komedi, och en pjäs som utspelas i en delvis uppochnedvänd värld – och en som när den vänds återigen inte heller då riktigt stämmer med förväntningarna. Kul, smart och bra. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1159788...

It's pretty good. Not as intrinsically good as the similar Midsummer Night's Dream and Comedy of Errors, but close: the main plot of the siblings being confused with each other is neatly done (though interestingly with a much stronger role for the sister than the brother); the subplot of Malvolio's fall needs more careful treatment, as it is basically the humour of cruelty, and one needs to make Malvolio monstrous enough not to engage too much of the audience's sympathy.

Arkangel have done one of their best productions here. Niamh Cusack is Viola; Julian Glover, doing a Scottish accent, is Malvolio; Dinsdale Landen is a suitably disgusting Sir Tony Belch; Arkangel stalwart Amanda Root is Olivia; and most gloriously, Paterson Joseph is Feste, playing it as if it was the role he was born to play (as of course he does with everything) - particularly when he is playing Feste playing the clergyman Sir Topas. Somehow the chemistry seems to have worked between the big name stars, and the result is fantastic. ( )

Shipwrecked siblings, love-struck Dukes and Duchesses, silly servants and misplaced affections. I enjoyed this very much. No one does confusion of identity as well as Shakespeare, and when it's one of his comedies, there is always a happy ending. ( )