Twelfth Night, or What You Will

Queen Elizabeth I commissioned Twelfth Night, or What You Will for January 6, 1600 in celebration of the visit of Don Virgilio Orsino of Tuscany, her chief guest at the height of the Christmas revels. Shakespeare and his company had only ten days to write, rehearse, and present a play full of music, dance, song and high jinks to amuse her Majesty and the Court. January 6, or the twelfth day of Christmas, was also the traditional time for the Saturnalia—the time when everything could be turned upside down, little people could ape and make fun of their betters, and those who had gotten too big for the britches could be laughed at openly. The butt of the jokes for Twelfth Night was

the Queen’s Comptroller Sir William Knollys, the overseer of the household servants and manager of expenditures for the Court’s diet. He was also a married man of 53 and in love with one of the Queen’s young ladies in waiting—Mary Fitton. Hence his counterpart in the play is named Malvolio—a pun on the phrase “I want Mol” or Molly. The year 1600 was a leap year – a traditional time when women could take charge and run the show, and how suitable for a celebration fit for a Queen! Thus Shakespeare gave her Majesty a play in which the women definitely take over. For example, it is Maria, Olivia’s Lady in Waiting, who is the chief engineer of the joke on Malvolio, and revels in the victory when he takes her bait. Furthermore, in a leap year, ladies may propose marriage, as does Olivia herself to Caesario/ Sebastian.

Traditionally our February slot is for small plays – because of budget and time constraints both in shop and in rehearsal. However, many of the students in this year’s 4th year acting class were so keen to do a Shakespeare, having cut their teeth on the smaller roles in last season’s Romeo and Juliet, that we decided to give them a chance to do Twelfth Night. The play is also conducive to doubling, so we’ve been able to make sure that everyone in that graduating class has a chance to tackle a strong role before graduation.

I’ve set the play in 1970, partly again for the practical reasons of time and budget constraints but mostly because it simply fits so well there. In 1970 it seemed there was a Swami around every corner and it seemed suitable to get Viola into a turban and love beads to send her off to Orsino’s court in disguise. Love was in the air, and the play is full of love and love’s delusions. On the edges of Twelfth Night there is also a war that only serves to heighten our appreciation of love and loss, and the brevity of youth. It is hard to remember the ‘70’s and all its sublimity and silliness, without also remembering its pain.

I have no doubt that Illyria is England. Our play is set in a thinly veiled Brighton by the sea. It struck me in preparation, on the remark of a colleague, that you can’t go less than a mile in England and the accents change. So, I decided to give the strangers from Messaline the posh accents and let everyone else in Illyria sound uniformly like us—the country folk just down the coast—just to bring it a little closer to home.

Please enjoy our show and thank you for your continued support for the Department of Theatre and the work we do here.