Shakespeare in Production
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82534-4 - Twelfth Night Edited by Elizabeth Schafer Frontmatter More information SHAKESPEARE IN PRODUCTION TWELFTH NIGHT For four centuries Twelfth Night has inspired theatre directors and perform- ers: some have found class war; some have seen Malvolio as a tragic hero; some have found a passive Viola and others have found an action woman. Whether a production’s emphasis is on gender bending, festivity or trying to reinvent Shakespeare as Chekhov, the sheer variety of Twelfth Nightson offer over the centuries attests to the play’s power as a stimulus to theatrical creativity.The dazzling range of the Twelfth Nights considered here includes the productively wayward as well as the conventionally respectable, produc- tions which play to the contemporary market as well as those that seek to flout tradition. This indispensable stage history covers changing fashions in the fortunes of Twelfth Night, and includes a survey of a wide variety of theatrical interpretations of the play in the English-speaking world. elizabeth schafer is Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her books include MsDirecting Shakespeare: Women Direct Shakespeare (1998), The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare in Production, Cambridge, 2002), Lilian Baylis: A Biography (2006) and, with Richard Cave and Brian Woolland, Ben Jonson and Theatre (2000). © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82534-4 - Twelfth Night Edited by Elizabeth Schafer Frontmatter More information SHAKESPEARE IN PRODUCTION series editors: j. s. bratton and julie hankey This series offers students and researchers the fullest possible stage his- tories of individual Shakespearean texts. In each volume a substantial introduction presents a conceptual overview of the play, marking out the major stages of its representation and reception. The commentary, pre- sented alongside the New Cambridge Shakespeare edition of the text itself, offers detailed, line-by-line evidence for the overview presented in the introduction, making the volume a flexible tool for further research. The editors have selected interesting and vivid evocations of settings, acting and stage presentation, and range widely in time and space. already published Antony and Cleopatra, edited by richard madelaine As You Like It, edited by cynthia marshall Hamlet,editedbyroberthapgood King Henry V,editedbyemmasmith Macbeth, edited by john wilders The Merchant of Venice, edited by charles edelman A Midsummer Night’s Dream, edited by trevor r. griffiths Much Ado About Nothing,editedbyjohnf.cox Othello,editedbyjuliehankey Romeo and Juliet, edited by james n. loehlin The Taming of the Shrew, edited by elizabeth schafer The Tempest, edited by christine dymkowski Troilus and Cressida, edited by frances a. shirley Twelfth Night, edited by elizabeth schafer © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82534-4 - Twelfth Night Edited by Elizabeth Schafer Frontmatter More information TWELFTH NIGHT edited by elizabeth schafer Royal Holloway, University of London © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82534-4 - Twelfth Night Edited by Elizabeth Schafer Frontmatter More information cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao˜ Paulo, Delhi Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru,UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521532204 C Cambridge University Press 2009 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2009 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616. Twelfth night / edited by Elizabeth Schafer. p. cm. – (Shakespeare in production) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-521-82534-4 – isbn 978-0-521-53220-4 (pbk.) 1. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616. Twelfth night. 2. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616 – Stage history. 3. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616 – Dramatic production. 4. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616 – Film and video adaptations. I. Schafer, Elizabeth. II. Title. III. Series. pr2837.a2s33 2009 822.33 –dc22 2009011361 isbn 978-0-521-82534-4 hardback isbn 978-0-521-53220-4 paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82534-4 - Twelfth Night Edited by Elizabeth Schafer Frontmatter More information For my father, David Schafer, who drove to Stratford so many times © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82534-4 - Twelfth Night Edited by Elizabeth Schafer Frontmatter More information CONTENTS List of illustrations page viii Series editors’ preface xi Acknowledgements xiii Editor’s note xv List of abbreviations xvi List of productions xviii Introduction 1 List of characters 80 Twelfth Night 83 Appendix: adaptations 226 References 230 Index 242 vii © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82534-4 - Twelfth Night Edited by Elizabeth Schafer Frontmatter More information ILLUSTRATIONS 1 Elizabeth Farren as a lute-playing, singing Olivia. Farren’s first appearance as Olivia was 20 May 1780. page 9 2 Orsino’s court, from the souvenir of Augustin Daly’s 1893 production. Photograph: Sarony. By permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. 16 3 Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Malvolio in Tree’s 1901 production. Photograph: F.W. Burford. By permission of the Bristol Theatre Collection. 20 4 Lillah McCarthy in her ‘woman’s weeds’ as Viola at the end of Harley Granville Barker’s 1912 production. Reproduced from The Play Pictorial, number 126, vol. XXI, 1912. 23 5 Cavaliers and Roundheads costume design for Harcourt Williams’s 1931 Old Vic production. Design by Owen Paul Smyth. By permission of the Bristol Theatre Collection. 27 6 Donald Sinden as Malvolio in the ‘dark room’ of 4.2 in John Barton’s 1969 RSC production. Photograph: Zoe Dominic. 44 7 John Wood as Toby and Geoffrey Rush as Andrew in Neil Armfield’s 1983 production for the Lighthouse Company, Adelaide. Photograph: David Wilson. 50 8 Brian Bedford as Malvolio and Marti Maraden as Olivia in David Jones’s production at Stratford, Ontario in 1975. Photograph: Robert C. Ragsdale. By permission of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival Archives. 53 9 Matilda Ziegler as Olivia and Zoe Waites as Cesario in Lindsay Posner’s 2001 RSC production. Photograph: Malcolm Davies Collection (copyright Shakespeare Birthplace Trust). 55 10 Joanne Howarth as Fabian, Marjorie Yates as Toby and Siobhan Redmond as Maria in Neil Bartlett’s 2007 production for the RSC. Photograph: Malcolm Davies Collection (copyright Shakespeare Birthplace Trust). 57 11 Michael Brown as Viola in Tim Carroll’s 2002 production for Shakespeare’s Globe. Photograph: John Tramper. 58 viii © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82534-4 - Twelfth Night Edited by Elizabeth Schafer Frontmatter More information List of illustrations ix 12 Ian Holm as Sebastian, Geraldine McEwan as Olivia and Dorothy Tutin as Cesario in a publicity shot for Peter Hall’s 1958 production (Olivia did not wear black for this scene in the actual production). Photograph: Tom Holte Theatre Photographic Collection (copyright Shakespeare Birthplace Trust). 63 © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-82534-4 - Twelfth Night Edited by Elizabeth Schafer Frontmatter More information SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE It is no longer necessary to stress that the text of a play is only its starting- point, and that only in production is its potential realised and capable of being appreciated fully. Since the coming-of-age of Theatre Studies as an academic discipline, we now understand that even Shakespeare is only one collaborator in the creation and infinite recreation of his play upon the stage. And just as we now agree that no play is complete until it is produced, so we have become interested in the way in which plays often produced – and pre-eminently the plays of the national Bard, William Shakespeare – acquire a life history of their own, after they leave the hands of their first maker. Since the eighteenth century Shakespeare has become a cultural construct: sometimes the guarantor of nationhood, heritage and the status quo, sometimes seized and transformed to be its critic and antidote. This latter role has been particularly evident in countries where Shakespeare has to be translated. The irony is that while his status as national icon grows in the English-speaking world, his language is both lost and renewed, so that for good or ill, Shakespeare can be made