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Home , Feste, Malvolio, Orsino (Twelfth Night), Sheila Atim, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Sir Toby Belch

Wurtele Thrust Stage / Feb 8 – March 22, 2020

Twelfth Night

by directed by TOM QUAINTANCE Inside

THE PLAY Synopsis, Setting and Characters • 4 Scene by Scene • 5 Who's Who in • 7 Comments on Some of the Characters • 8 Responses to Twelfth Night • 10

THE PLAYWRIGHT William Shakespeare • 13 A Legacy That Continues to Inspire • 14 Shakespeare’s Plays • 15

CULTURAL CONTEXT Fools, Music and : The Joy of Twelfth Night • 16 A Selected Glossary of Terms • 18 Connecting Local Youth With the Arts • 20

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION For Further Reading and Understanding • 22

Guthrie Theater Play Guide Copyright 2020

DRAMATURG Carla Steen GRAPHIC DESIGNER Akemi Graves CONTRIBUTORS Tamiko French, Morgan Holmes, Carla Steen , 818 South 2nd Street, Minneapolis, MN 55415 EDITOR Johanna Buch

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2 \ GUTHRIE THEATER PHOTO: EMILY GUNYOU HALAAS AND NATE CHEESEMAN IN TWELFTH NIGHT (DAN NORMAN)

“If music be the food of love, play on; give me excess of it.”

– in Twelfth Night About This Guide

This play guide is designed to fuel up on a play before you see it DIG DEEPER your curiosity and deepen your onstage. Or perhaps you’re a fellow If you are a theater company understanding of a show’s history, theater company doing research and would like more meaning and cultural relevance for an upcoming production. information about this so you can make the most of your We’re glad you found your way production, contact Resident theatergoing experience. You might here, and we encourage you to Dramaturg Carla Steen at be reading this because you fell in dig in and mine the depths of this [email protected]. love with a show you saw at the extraordinary story. Guthrie. Maybe you want to read

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SETTING and the sea coast. Most of the action occurs in and around Orsino’s palace and ’s house.

CHARACTERS Orsino, duke of Illyria Curio, a lord in Orsino’s court Valentine, a lord in Orsino’s court , twin sister to Sebastian; disguises herself as Cesario Sebastian, twin brother to Viola Captain, rescuer of Viola Antonio, friend and rescuer of Sebastian Olivia, a countess in mourning , Olivia’s waiting gentlewoman , Olivia’s uncle , Sir Toby’s friend; a suitor to Olivia , a fool in Olivia’s household , Olivia’s steward Other characters include officers, musicians and sailors.

PHOTO: JOY DOLO, LUVERNE SEIFERT AND SALLY WINGERT IN TWELFTH NIGHT (DAN NORMAN) Synopsis

A storm at sea separates twins position: She herself is in love steward Malvolio, who tries to Viola and Sebastian. Viola washes with Orsino, who in turn pines for maintain decorum in a house of ashore on the coast of Illyria and Olivia. And things only get more mourning. In retaliation, Olivia’s disguises herself as a man (Cesario) confusing when the thought-to- gentlewoman Maria devises a to work in the court of Duke Orsino, be-lost Sebastian and his friend practical joke to be played on who promptly tasks Cesario (aka Antonio turn up in Illyria. Malvolio. From hijinks to romances, Viola) with wooing the countess everything in Illyria happens in a Olivia on his behalf. Like Viola, Amidst all the wooing and pining, spirit that befits the revelry of the Olivia is mourning a brother and several members of Olivia’s play’s title. has refused Orsino’s advances, but household embark on adventures she agrees to hear Cesario out, of their own. Olivia’s uncle Sir Toby which results in her quickly falling encourages his friend Sir Andrew in love with “him.” Viola suddenly to be a suitor to Olivia. Dampening finds herself in a complicated their drunken merriment is Olivia’s

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Scene by Scene

ACT ONE ACT TWO

Scene One Scene One At Duke Orsino’s palace in Illyria, Cesario and Sebastian has spent the last few months with others sing for Orsino. He’s in love with the Antonio, who rescued him from the sea. He countess Olivia, but it’s unrequited because now sets off for Orsino’s court. Despite having she is in mourning for her brother and won’t enemies in Orsino’s court, a devoted Antonio receive his messengers. follows Sebastian.

Flashback Scene Scene Two Cesario reveals he’s really Viola in disguise. Malvolio gives the ring to Cesario. Not having She is separated from her twin brother given a ring to Olivia, Viola realizes Olivia has Sebastian during a shipwreck. fallen in love with Cesario.

Scene Two Scene Three Viola washes ashore in Illyria, saved by the Late at night, a drunken Sir Toby and Sir ship’s captain. She asks the captain to help Andrew make a ruckus with Feste. Maria tries her disguise herself so she can get work in unsuccessfully to quiet them. Malvolio disperses Orsino’s court. She fears Sebastian them and threatens to tell Olivia. Maria devises has drowned. a plot to get revenge on Malvolio by leaving a letter for him in which Olivia supposedly Scene Three confesses her love for him. Olivia’s uncle, Sir Toby, comes back late to Olivia’s house. Maria, Olivia’s waiting Scene Four gentlewoman, warns him that Olivia’s Early in the morning, Orsino wants music again, patience is wearing thin. Sir Toby has so the musicians search for Feste. Orsino and brought in his rich friend Sir Andrew to Cesario talk about how men and women love woo Olivia. differently, and Cesario says his sister loved once. Orsino sends Cesario to Olivia again. Scene Four As Cesario, Viola finds favor with Orsino, Scene Five who sends her off to woo Olivia on his Maria, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew watch Malvolio behalf. Unfortunately for Viola, she has fallen discover the letter and resolve to do all it says in love with Orsino. he should.

Scene Five Feste the fool returns to Olivia’s house after a prolonged absence. After some verbal Olympics, in which Feste proves Olivia a fool, Olivia forgives him. Her steward Malvolio feels less kindly toward Feste. Maria announces Cesario’s arrival, and an intrigued Olivia agrees to see him. Cesario speaks well, and by the end, Olivia has fallen in love with Cesario. She sends Malvolio out with a ring she says he left behind.

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ACT THREE ACT FOUR Who’s Who in Twelfth Night

Scene One Scene One Cesario encounters Feste and then Sir Toby Mistaking Sebastian for Cesario, Feste tries to and Sir Andrew outside Olivia’s house. Olivia bring him to Olivia’s. Sir Toby and Sir Andrew Orsino Viola again refuses Orsino and confesses she loves also mistake Sebastian for Cesario and try to Duke of Illyria (Disguised as Cesario) Cesario. Cesario says he won’t visit her again. continue the duel. Olivia intervenes and brings Works in Orsino’s Sebastian into her house. household Scene Two Sir Andrew decides to leave because Olivia Scene Two won’t see him. Sir Toby persuades him Malvolio is imprisoned in a dark room, and that Olivia’s interest in Cesario is to make Sir Toby and Maria send Feste in disguise as Feste Sir Andrew prove his valor, so they plan to the curate Sir Topas. Then he goes back in as A fool in Olivia’s Sebastian challenge Cesario to a duel. Sir Andrew goes himself. Malvolio asks for pen and ink to write household Viola’s twin off to write the challenge. to Olivia. brother

Scene Three Scene Three Antonio catches up with Sebastian. Antonio Olivia proposes to Sebastian. He accepts. plans to arrange for their lodging and gives Sir Andrew Sir Toby’s his purse to Sebastian in case he needs Olivia friend A countess in Antonio money while sightseeing. mourning Sebastian’s rescuer Scene Four ACT FIVE Olivia sends Feste to bring Cesario back. Maria warns Olivia that Malvolio is acting Scene One strangely. Malvolio comes in smiling, with Orsino and Cesario arrive at Olivia’s. An officer KEY yellow stockings and cross-gartered, as brings in Antonio, who Cesario identifies Family the letter told him to. Olivia is bewildered, as the person who rescued him. Antonio Love interest worries Malvolio is sick and asks Sir Toby mistakes Cesario for Sebastian and reveals Employee and Maria to take care of him. For fun, they they’ve been companions for three months. decide to treat him like a madman. Cesario Olivia rebuffs Orsino and calls Cesario her Friends and Olivia talk again. Sir Andrew has the husband. They are interrupted by a bloodied challenge ready, but Sir Toby plans a joke on Sir Andrew, claiming to have just come from Sir Toby Maria them both. When Cesario is leaving, Sir Toby a beating by Cesario. Sir Toby reports the Olivia’s uncle A gentlewoman in makes each think the other is a fierce fighter, same. Sebastian then enters, apologizing for Olivia’s household so both will be too scared to fight. But in the hurting Olivia’s uncle. Everyone recognizes the midst of the duel, Antonio arrives, mistakes remarkable similarity between Sebastian and Malvolio Olivia’s steward Cesario for Sebastian and fights on his behalf. Cesario. Cesario reveals she’s really Viola. The He’s arrested and asks Cesario for his purse. twins are reunited. Orsino proposes to Viola. Puck’s Spotty Lighthouse Cesario has no idea what he means. But Malvolio comes in, reveals the plot against him hearing Antonio mention Sebastian, Viola has and leaves vowing revenge on everyone. Illyria Out Damned Spot Dog Walkers hope her brother is alive. To Brie or Not to Brie Deli To Thine Own Orsino’s Self Be Tattoo Olivia’s Palace Winter of Our House Discount Tent Rentals Shakes Pier I Swoon for Balloons Duncan’s Factory Donuts Hathaway’s Merlots by Any Marital Other Name The Elephant Counseling Divorce, Divorce, Inn My Kingdom for a Divorce Mall of Illyria Lawyers

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Who’s Who in Twelfth Night

Orsino Viola Duke of Illyria (Disguised as Cesario) Works in Orsino’s household

Feste A fool in Olivia’s Sebastian household Viola’s twin brother

Sir Andrew Sir Toby’s Olivia friend A countess in Antonio mourning Sebastian’s rescuer

KEY Family

Love interest

Employee

Friends

Sir Toby Maria Olivia’s uncle A gentlewoman in Olivia’s household Malvolio Olivia’s steward

Puck’s Spotty Lighthouse Illyria Out Damned Spot Dog Walkers

To Brie or Not to Brie Deli To Thine Own Orsino’s Self Be Tattoo Olivia’s Palace Winter of Our House Discount Tent Rentals Shakes Pier I Swoon for Balloons Duncan’s Factory Donuts Hathaway’s Merlots by Any Marital Other Name The Elephant Counseling Divorce, Divorce, Inn My Kingdom for a Divorce Mall of Illyria Lawyers

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Comments on Some of the Characters

stockings. He is a being, in short, say he was but anticipating his to whom the world, with all its commission as matrimonial agent. shows and forms, is intensely real Now, dull though Olivia’s house and profoundly respectable. He may be, it is free quarters. He is, it has no sense of its littleness, its seems, in some danger of losing evanescence, without which he can them, but if only by good luck he have no sense of its greatness and could see Sir Andrew installed its mystery. there as master! Not perhaps all one could wish for in an uncle; William Archer, Macmillan’s Magazine, but to found an interpretation of August, 1884 Sir Toby only upon a study of his unfortunate surname is, I think, for the actor to give us both less and more than Shakespeare meant. MALVOLIO I do not believe that Sir Andrew The radical defect in [Malvolio’s] is meant for a cretinous idiot. His nature is a lack of that sense of accomplishments may not quite humor which is the safety-valve of stand to Sir Toby’s boast of them; all our little insanities, preventing alas! the three or four languages, even the most expansive egoism word for word without book, from altogether over-inflating us. seem to end at “Dieu vous garde, He takes himself and the world too Monsieur.” But Sir Andrew, as he seriously. He has no intuition for the would be if he could — the scholar incongruous and grotesque, to put to no purpose, the fine fellow to the drag upon his egoistic fantasy, SIR TOBY AND SIR ANDREW no end, in short the perfect “sick of self-love.” His face, not only gentleman — is still the ideal of smileless itself, but contemptuous I do not think that Sir Toby is meant better men than he who yet can of mirth in others, has acted as a for nothing but a bestial sot. He is find nothing better to do. damper upon the humor of the a gentleman by birth or he would sprightly Maria and the jovial Sir not be Olivia’s uncle (or cousin, Harley Granville-Barker, Prefaces to Toby; he has taken a set pleasure if that is the relationship). He has Shakespeare, 1912 in putting the poor Clown out of been, it would seem, a soldier. He is countenance by receiving his quips a drinker, and while idleness leads with a stolid gravity. him to excess, the boredom of Olivia’s drawing-room, where she Hence the rancor of the humorists sits solitary in her mourning, drives against a fundamentally him to such jolly companions as he antagonistic nature; hence, can find: Maria … and the Fool. perhaps, their whim of making him crown his absurdities by a forced He is a poor relation and has been smile, a grimace more incongruous dear to Sir Andrew some two PHOTOS: THIS PAGE: JIM LICHTSCHEIDL AS MALVOLIO; SALLY WINGERT with his pompous personality thousand strong or so (poor Sir AND JOY DOLO AS SIR TOBY AND SIR ANDREW; NEXT PAGE: LUVERNE SEIFERT AS FESTE; GUTHRIE AUDIENCE; JOY DOLO, SALLY WINGERT than even cross-garters or yellow Andrew), but as to that he might AND SARAH JANE AGNEW (ALL PHOTOS BY DAN NORMAN)

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As ruler of the revels in Twelfth with Shakespeare’s gesture, in the Night, that most spirited, gay and play’s second title, of leaving the graceful of courtly comedies, Feste responsibility to the audience: the remains for us the supreme. “you” in What you will is addressed The wise and charm of the directly to us spectators and artificial Fool could hardly readers and can be interpreted mount higher. either self-referentially as “find your own title” … or more amply as Leslie Hotson, Shakespeare’s Motley, 1971 “make of the play what you wish.” The comedy goes on to invite an unusual degree of audience complicity with the main action, FESTE first in Viola’s disguise plot, then in the “good practice” of the duping Not until we enter the Lady of Malvolio, encouraging us to join Olivia’s courtly household in the company of the plotters hidden Twelfth Night do we meet, in Feste, in the box tree or sneering in the the Fool refined of all clownish dark room. alloy. … The artificial Fool has at length shaken off all rustic Keir Elam, editor, from the introduction humor and memories bucolic. of Twelfth Night for The Arden For us Feste in the idiot’s motley Shakespeare, 2008 robe of privilege stands as the quintessential high-comedy jester, the triumph of Shakespeare and [actor Robert] Armin in this kind. THE AUDIENCE His wit is courtly, his admirable fooling scholarly, his singing In the case of Twelfth Night, exquisite. The delight of wise the spectator plays the part foolery is his whole spring of co-protagonist. This role is of being. … inscribed in the text, beginning

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Responses to Twelfth Night

PHOTO: SARAH JANE AGNEW IN TWELFTH NIGHT (DAN NORMAN)

At our feast wee had a play called Twelfth Night is, to me, the last Feste for him and later the Fool “Twelve Night, or What You Will,” play of Shakespeare’s golden age. in Lear. At least, I can conceive much like the Commedy of Errores, I feel happy ease in the writing no dramatist risking the writing or Menechmi in , but most and find much happy carelessness of such parts unless he knew he like and neere to that in Italian in the putting together. It is akin had a man to play them. And why called Inganni. A good practise to the Two Gentlemen of Verona a diminutive Maria — Penthesilea, in it to make the Steward beleeve (compare Viola and Julia), it echoes the youngest wren of nine — unless his Lady Widdow was in love with a little to the same tune as the it was only that the actor of the him, by counterfeyting a letter as sweeter parts of The Merchant part was to be such a very small from his Lady in generall termes, of Venice, and its comic spirit is boy? I have cudgeled my brains telling him what she liked best in the spirit of the Falstaff scenes of to discover why Maria, as Maria, him, and prescribing his gesture in Henry IV, that are to my taste the should be tiny, and finding no smiling, his aparaile, and then when truest comedy he wrote. … reason have ignored the point. … he came to practise making him beleeve they tooke him to be mad. I believe the play was written with The keynotes of the poetry of the a special cast in mind. Who was play are that it is passionate and John Manningham, a lawyer who saw a Shakespeare’s clown, a sweet- it is exquisite. It is life, I believe, performance of Twelfth Night in February voiced singer and something much as Shakespeare glimpsed it with 1602 and recorded his thoughts in his diary more than a comic actor? He wrote the eye of his genius in that half-

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Italianized court of Elizabeth. of death, rebirth and purgation yet created. But the play also looks Orsino, Olivia, Antonio, Sebastian, by suffering. forward: the pressure to dissolve Viola are passionate all, and the comedy, to realize and finally conscious of the worth of their W.H. Auden, “Twelfth Night,” 1947, in abandon the burden of laughter, passion in terms of beauty. Lectures on Shakespeare, 2000 is an intrinsic part of its “perfection.” … After Twelfth Harley Granville-Barker, Prefaces to Night the so-called comedies Shakespeare, 1912 When Shakespeare wrote Twelfth require for their happy resolutions Night he could only surmise what the more radical characters and future had in store for him. But we devices — omniscient and The atmosphere of love is round all know. To us this play, with the song omnipresent Dukes, magic and that Viola is; and it creates love in that brings it to a conclusion, looks resurrection. More obvious miracles whomsoever it touches. It infects both ways. It is a bridge between the are needed for comedy to exist in Olivia. It has already infected the poet’s Comedies and his a world in which evil also exits, not Duke. He loves Cesario; he needs as more obviously merely incipiently but with power. only one touch of circumstance to is between his Histories and his love Viola. Tragedies. … Compared with himself, Joseph H. Summers, “The Masks of Twelfth he is now for the first time about Night,” The University of Kansas City Review, Stopford A. Brooke, Ten More Plays of to confront the full force of the Autumn 1955 Shakespeare, 1913 wind and the rain, to come to man’s estate. is not far under the horizon. His “play” is done. The more one thinks over Twelfth Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare’s Night in relation to the earlier unpleasant plays. It is not a comedy Harold C. Goddard, The Meaning of comedies, the more one can relish for schoolchildren, commonly Shakespeare, 1951 the undeluded gentleness of its felt. Most of the characters are not spirit and the perfect control of individual enough to provide comic its art. And one can begin to see depth, and at the time Shakespeare Twelfth Night is the climax of how Shakespeare, with this control, wrote the play, he seems to have Shakespeare’s early achievement in could have written at about been averse to pleasantness. The comedy. The effects and values of the same time. comic convention in which the play the earlier comedies are here subtly is set prevents him from giving embodied in the most complex Francis Fergusson, introduction to Twelfth direct expression to this mood, but structure which Shakespeare had Night, The Laurel Shakespeare, 1959 the mood keeps disturbing, even spoiling, the comic feeling. One has PHOTO: SARAH JANE AGNEW, SALLY WINGERT AND LUVERNE SEIFERT IN TWELFTH NIGHT (DAN NORMAN) a sense, and nowhere more strongly than in the songs, of there being inverted commas around the “fun.” The plays that followed Twelfth Night are the tragedies, as well as and All’s Well That Ends Well, which are considered his dark comedies. …

Shakespeare returns to the use of twins in the play, as in . Viola’s motivation for disguising herself is capricious — it is necessary only to set the plot in motion — and the shipwreck has merely a technical use, to get the characters in place. In the last plays, storms and shipwrecks are elaborately developed as symbols

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These elements, it is worth noting, were also present in the farcical Comedy of Errors, the plot of which turns on separated twins, lost and found parents, a shipwreck, and the miracle of rebirth, all with a definite Christian undertone. In Twelfth Night Shakespeare returns to this basic pattern, as he will have recourse to it yet again in , near the end of his career. But in Twelfth Night he makes an important change from the earlier Comedy of Errors design,

PHOTO: SUN MEE CHOMET, SARAH JANE AGNEW, JIM LICHTSCHEIDL AND LUVERNE SEIFERT IN TWELFTH NIGHT (DAN NORMAN) by making his “identical” twins of different sexes. It is the task of Feste in his final easy connubial resolutions inherent song to ... build a bridge from that in his sources with something more By doing this he is able to combine remote enchanted place where problematic, thereby adding to the an old theme with a newer one, the the two romantic couples remain comic ending of the play something theme of rebirth with the theme forever to the very different world of a tragic one. of sexual love and growth and the outside the theater which is our freeing and educative function own. ... Precisely because of his Edward Cahill, “The Problem of Malvolio,” of erotic ambiguity and sexual anonymity and aloofness in the College Literature, June 1996 disguise. Viola as a boy, though play now ended, he can be trusted carefully described as high-voiced to speak for all mankind and not and clear-complexioned, is able to simply for himself. Wild with laughter, Twelfth Night educate both Orsino and Olivia in is nevertheless almost always love, as Rosalind did Orlando in As Anne Barton, The Riverside Shakespeare, 1974 on the edge of violence. Illyria You Like It, because she is herself in is not the healthiest of castaway a middle space, in disguise, and in climes, located as it is in the both genders. The origins of the main plot in Shakespearean cosmos between Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night have Hamlet’s miasmic Elsinore and the Once again the fact that boy actors been traced to a cluster of earlier fierce wars and faithless lovers of played the roles of women on the comedies and their derivatives; . public stage meant that a boy however, the subplot, involving played a young woman playing a Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, Maria and Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of boy — one reason for the plentiful their “gull,” Malvolio, was entirely the Human, 1998 reminders in this play that “Cesario” Shakespeare’s invention. Like the is not a man, but a woman in main story, the Malvolio subplot also disguise. If the audience were to involves comic “errors,” disguise Romance, the genre of make the same “mistake” as Orsino and performance and the pursuit Shakespeare’s late plays, was and Olivia, there would be no of marriage. It similarly explores a popular Elizabethan mode. comedy and no play. But if Orsino the themes of identity, desire and Among its signature elements and Olivia did not make this crucial the confusion of both. In fact, the were shipwrecks, the rediscovery error, falling in love with the elusive “gulling” of Malvolio and Sir Toby’s of long-lost brothers and sisters, and delusive “Cesario,” they would debauched revelry literalize the physical marks of recognition learn nothing. There would be no “misrule” of the main story. and rebirths from the sea. A romance and no play. fundamentally narrative genre, But the subplot does not resolve which would eventually give rise to Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All, 2004 itself as neatly as the main plot does; the modern novel, romance always indeed, it fails to resolve itself at all. turns on and on moments It might be supposed, then, that of rebirth. Some quotes were sourced from the play guide created Shakespeare sought to counter the for the Guthrie’s 2001 production of Twelfth Night.

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William Shakespeare

18, Shakespeare married , and the couple would have three children: Susanna in 1583 and twins Hamnet and Judith in 1585.

After an eight-year gap where Shakespeare’s activity is not known, he appeared in London by 1592 and quickly began to make a name for himself as a prolific playwright. He stayed in London for about 20 years, becoming increasingly successful in his work as an actor, writer and shareholder in his acting company. Retirement took him back to Stratford to lead the life of a country gentleman. His son Hamnet died at age 11, but both daughters

William Shakespeare were married: Susanna to Dr. and Judith to .

Shakespeare died in Stratford in 1616 on April 23, which is thought to be his birthday. He is buried in the parish church, where his grave can be seen to this day. His known body William Shakespeare was writing. While much of the of work includes at least 37 born in 1564 to John and biographical information is plays, two long poems and 154 Mary and sketchy and incomplete, for a sonnets. raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, person of his class and as the Warwickshire, in England’s son of a town alderman, quite a West Country. lot of information is available.

Much of the information Young Shakespeare would have about him comes from official attended the Stratford grammar documents such as wills, legal school, where he would have documents and court records. learned to read and write not There are also contemporary only English, but also Latin and references to him and his some Greek. In 1582, at age

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A Legacy That Continues to Inspire

The Poetry of Shakespeare was His characters are intimately bound character or event has not only a Inspiration indeed: he is not so up with the audience. That is why large number of interpretations, much an Imitator as an Instrument his plays are the greatest example but an unlimited number. Which of Nature; and ’tis not so just to say there is of a people’s theater; in is the characteristic of reality. … that he speaks from her, as that she this theater the public found and An artist may try to capture and speaks through him. still finds its own problems and re- reflect your action, but actually he experiences them. interprets it – so that a naturalistic Alexander Pope, Preface to The Works of painting, a Picasso painting, a Shakespeare, 1725 Jean-Paul Sartre, On Theater, 1959 photograph, are all interpretations. But in itself, the action of one

We do not understand Shakespeare [A]lthough each play is a separate man touching his head is open PHOTOS: ZLATO RIZZIOLLI, WAYNE T. CARR AND SAM WICK IN PERICLES (JENNY GRAHAM); NATHANIEL FULLER IN KING LEAR (T CHARLES ERICKSON); LUIS VEGA AND ANDREA SAN MIGUEL IN (DAN NORMAN) from a single reading, and certainly and individual work of art, they all to unlimited understanding and not from a single play. There is a generally illuminate one another, interpretation. In reality, that is. relation between the various plays and taken together they form an What Shakespeare wrote carries of Shakespeare, taken in order; and impressive achievement in which that characteristic. What he wrote it is work of years to venture even each individual play acquires is not interpretations: it is the one individual interpretation of the more weight and dignity when thing itself. pattern in Shakespeare’s carpet. placed against the background of the whole corpus. Each play , “What is Shakespeare?” (1947), T.S. Eliot, Dante, Faber & Faber, 1929 is more or less a landmark in the in The Shifting Point, Harper & Row, 1987 road along which Shakespeare the Shakespeare’s mind is the type artist traveled, or, to change the of the androgynous, of the man- metaphor, each play is a variation woman mind. … It is fatal for on a number of themes that recur Every age creates its anyone who writes to think of their in the poet’s work. sex. It is fatal to be a man or a own Shakespeare. woman pure and simple; one must M.M. Badawn, Background to Shakespeare, … Like a portrait be woman-manly or man-womanly. Macmillian India Limited, 1981 whose eyes seem to follow you around the Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, 1929 If one takes those thirty-seven room, engaging your plays with all the radar lines of glance from every the different viewpoints of the angle, [his] plays different characters, one comes out with a field of incredible density and their characters and complexity; and eventually seem always to be one goes a step further, and one “modern,” always to finds that what happened, what passed through this man called be “us.” Shakespeare and came into Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After existence on sheets of paper, is All, Anchor Books, 2004 something quite different from any other author’s work. It’s not Shakespeare’s view of the world, it’s something which actually resembles reality. A sign of this is that any single word, line,

PHOTO: EMILY GUNYOU HALAAS AND SUN MEE CHOMET IN TWELFTH NIGHT (DAN NORMAN) THE PLAYWRIGHT

Shakespeare’s Plays

PHOTOS: ZLATO RIZZIOLLI, WAYNE T. CARR AND SAM WICK IN PERICLES (JENNY GRAHAM); NATHANIEL FULLER IN KING LEAR (T CHARLES ERICKSON); LUIS VEGA AND ANDREA SAN MIGUEL IN AS YOU LIKE IT (DAN NORMAN)

EARLY PERIOD Twelfth Night was written sometime ca. 1587–92 The Two Gentlemen of Verona between 1600 and 1602 during ca. 1589–90 Shakespeare’s mature period, and it ca. 1590 Henry IV, Part II was performed at the Middle Temple ca. 1590–91 Henry IV, Part III in London in February 1602. Written ca. 1591 slightly after As You Like It, the play ca. 1592 Henry IV, Part I; Richard III marks the pinnacle of Shakespeare’s ca. 1594 The Comedy of Errors; Love’s Labour’s Lost great comedies. Around this time, Shakespeare also wrote Hamlet and MIDDLE PERIOD his final (darker) comedies, All’s ca. 1595 Richard II; Well That Ends Well and Measure for ca. 1596 A Midsummer Night’s Dream; ; Measure. ca. 1598 Henry IV, Part I; Henry IV, Part II; The play’s source is the 1531 Italian play GI’Ingannati or The Deceived ca. 1599 ; Julius Caesar Ones. Shakespeare likely knew of ca. 1600 As You Like It; The Merry Wives of Windsor it from other plays that borrowed ca. 1601 Twelfth Night its mistaken twins plot. The subplot ca. 1602 Troilus and Cressida involving Malvolio is Shakespeare’s ca. 1602–04 Hamlet invention. Twelfth Night was first ca. 1604 ; Measure for Measure published in the in 1623. ca. 1605–06 All’s Well That Ends Well; King Lear;

The current production is the fourth LATE PERIOD time the Guthrie has produced Twelfth ca. 1606 ; Night, in addition to presenting two ca. 1608 Pericles; all-male productions. ca. 1609–11 The Winter’s Tale played Olivia in an “original practices” ca. 1610 production by Shakespeare’s Globe ca. 1611 The Tempest in 2003 and Propeller’s Twelfth Night ca. 1613 Henry VIII played in repertory with its Taming of ca. 1613–14 the Shrew in 2013.

Authorship and dating of Shakespeare’s plays is a subject of much academic debate. These dates are speculative, but are the “most probable” dating from The New Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works.

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Fools, Music and Revels: The Joy of Twelfth Night

By Carla Steen Resident Dramaturg PHOTO: SALLY WINGERT, SARAH JANE AGNEW AND JOY DOLO IN TWELFTH NIGHT (DAN NORMAN)

DELIGHT IN place of higher officials and vice that we all must return to our AND REVELS versa, with mocking authority a workaday world and resume Twelfth Night takes its title from mostly approved activity. responsibilities, at least until the the culminating celebration of next festive season. the twelve-day season. While there’s no evidence that January 5 was marked with Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night FOOLS, MADMEN AND drinking and feasting as well as was either specifically written or DRUNKARDS entertainment and other revels, performed for Twelfth Night, the The revelry in Twelfth Night, at least which then ushered in Epiphany on spirit of the season infuses the play. among the characters in the play’s January 6. The twelve days had a From Sir Toby and Sir Andrew’s subplot, is almost equally divided atmosphere: masques and revelry and drinking to the among drunkards (Sir Toby and Sir plays performed at court, students upending of Malvolio’s authority Andrew), fools (Feste and others) released from their studies and the to the fool Feste’s antics, Twelfth and madmen (allegedly Malvolio). suspension of many typical Night is a pure celebration of Feste returns to Olivia’s good societal rules. delight and joy. graces by, of all things, proving that she’s a fool for mourning a During this period was the Feast Of course, every party must end, brother who is in heaven. Upon of Fools, in which the hierarchy and Feste’s final song provides a witnessing a very drunk Sir Toby flipped and low officials took the gentle reminder to the audience pass by, Olivia’s asks Feste, “What’s

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a drunken man like, fool?” He responds, “Like a drowned man, a fool and a madman: one draught above heat makes him a fool, BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE the second mads him and a third drowns him.” This short exchange When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, brings together many threads of I all alone beweep my outcast state, the play’s themes. And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, The word “fool” appears more And look upon myself and curse my fate, than 50 times in the uncut text, and as an “allowed fool,” Feste is Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, able to move seamlessly between Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Olivia and Orsino’s households and between the highborn and Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope, their servants. Feste has scenes With what I most enjoy contented least; with all the major characters. The drunken singing initiated by Sir Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Toby outside Olivia’s house brings the reprimand of Malvolio — the Haply I think on thee, and then my state, action that sparks Maria’s device (Like to the lark at break of day arising for which Malvolio will be taken as a madman. The “sportful malice” of From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate; the letter Malvolio finds and follows For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings results in him getting locked up in a darkened room, which That then I scorn to change my state with kings. was the Elizabeth “treatment” for madness. In Twelfth Night, drunkenness, foolery and madness are intertwined.

“AND SPEAK TO HIM IN MANY SORTS OF MUSIC” Twelfth Night starts and ends with music: Orsino calls for it in his famous opening line, and Feste closes the play with a song that sends the audience back to the real world. Many of the songs in Twelfth Night have known tunes, but the music for the Guthrie’s production has been written and arranged by sound designer/composer Sartje Pickett.

The text of the play doesn’t provide the song Orsino hears at the play’s start, so Pickett and director Tom Quaintance created one. The musicians in Orsino’s court play a song with lyrics from Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 29,” which has a number of themes that resonate with those of PHOTO: MICHAEL HANNA AND TYSON FORBES IN TWELFTH NIGHT (DAN NORMAN) Twelfth Night.

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A Selected Glossary of Terms

catechize A Ask questions; learn through formal Why does Viola name questions and answers herself “Cesario”? accost “I must catechize you for it, Madonna” Cesario is derived from Approach, pay court to; also a (Feste, 1.5.51) Caesar, and it is one of nautical or military term meaning several references to Caesar front, board or assail cockatrices Augustus in Twelfth Night. “Accost, Sir Andrew, accost” Mythical serpents, also known as Ancient Greeks used the (Sir Toby, 1.3.40) basilisks, who can kill with a look honorific Sebastos for “That they will kill one another by Augustus, who had three allowed the look, like cockatrices” military campaigns in Licensed, permitted (Sir Toby, 3.4.162–163) Illyricum. Augustus (aka “In an allowed fool, though he do Sebastos) married Livia. nothing but rail” complexion (Olivia, 1.5.76) Temperament, personality; appearance, coloring; outward appearance, physical makeup “The manner of his gait, the D B expresser of his eye, forehead and complexion” device barful (Maria, 2.3.112–113) Plot, stratagem Full of obstacles “Excellent, I smell a device” “Yet a barful strife!/Whoever I woo, constrained (Sir Toby, 2.3.116) myself would be his wife.” Obliged, compelled (Viola, 1.4.38–39) “I shall be constrain’d in’t to call thee knave, knight” betimes (Feste, 2.3.51–52) E Early in the morning “Not to be abed after midnight is to coxcomb Elysium be up betimes” Slang for the head via an allusion to In Greek mythology, the afterlife for (Sir Toby, 2.3.1) a fool’s cap the blessed; heaven “Has given Sir Toby a bloody “My brother he is in Elysium” coxcomb, too” (Viola, 1.2.4) (Sir Andrew, 5.1.164) C entertainment curate Reception, hospitality cakes and ale A parish priest “The rudeness that hath appeared Food at celebrations for “Make him believe thou art Sir in me have I learned from church holy days Topas the curate” my entertainment” “There shall be no more (Maria, 4.2.1–2) (Viola, 1.5.176–177) cakes and ale?” (Sir Toby, 2.3.82) cypress Wood and foliage associated F canary with mourning Sweet wine from the “And in sad cypress let me be laid” fadge Canary Islands (Feste, 2.4.50) To turn out well “O knight, thou lack’st a “How will this fadge?” cup of canary” (Viola, 2.2.30) (Sir Toby, 1.3.67)

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fancy motley Love; imagination Multi colored fool’s garments; also W “So full of shapes is fancy” used to describe a professional (Orsino, 1.1.14) jester like Feste welkin “Let fancy still my sense in “That’s as much to say as I wear not Sky Lethe steep” motley in my brain” “Who you are, and what you would (Sebastian, 4.1.55) (Feste, 1.5.46) are out of my welkin — I might say ‘element’” fool (Feste, 3.1.48) Jester; idiot O “If you be no better in your wits than a fool” ordinary fool willow (Feste, 4.2.75–76) Ordinary means tavern, so a born Huts of willow were symbols fool who entertains in a tavern of unrequited love “I saw him put down the other day “Make me a willow cabin with an ordinary fool that has no at your gate” G more brain than a stone” (Viola, 1.5.223) (Malvolio, 1.5.68) gull Dupe, fool “Yond gull Malvolio is turned Sources include notes to The New Cambridge Shakespeare and The Arden Shakespeare editions of heathen, a very renegado” P the play; Shakespeare’s Words by David Crystal and (Maria, 3.2.54) ; and Oxford English Dictionary. Penthesilea A queen of the Amazons “Good night, Penthesilea” I (Sir Toby, 2.3.127) it’s all one puritan It doesn’t matter A self-righteous moralist; may “I care not: give me faith, say I. or may not be a reference to Well, it’s all one.” Puritans, the reformist Protestants (Sir Toby, 1.5.105–106 and 5.1.181; who wanted to rid the last bits of Feste, 5.1.351 and 384) Catholicism from the Church of England “Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan” M (Maria, 2.3.101) mend Repair, make better, improve, amend S “Bid the dishonest man mend himself; if he mend, he is no surfeiting longer dishonest” Overindulging, feeding to excess (Feste, 1.5.37–38) “Give me excess of it, that surfeiting/The appetite may sicken and so die” (Orsino, 1.1.2–3)

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Connecting Local Youth With the Arts

Our community partner for Twelfth Night is Legacy Arts Group — a local nonprofit on a mission to provide arts immersion experiences that develop and provide a platform for the next generation of artmakers in the Twin Cities. This spring, their students will participate in post-play discussions for Twelfth Night as well as perform in the Dowling Studio. Artistic Associate Morgan Holmes recently caught up with Tamiko French, founder and artistic Tamiko French, founder director, to talk about her heart and artistic director of for local youth and the arts. Legacy Arts Group PHOTO: COURTESY OF LEGACY ARTS GROUP

MORGAN HOLMES: Tell me about arts integration specialist for five Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, so your work with students through years, and I’ve worked with artists I find them to be naturally adept Legacy Arts Group. across the Twin Cities for the last storytellers. What are some of your 23 years. I graduated from North students’ favorite stories? How do TAMIKO FRENCH: Legacy Arts in 1997, so I have a very deep they feel about theater’s relevance Group exists to assist students connection to the school. When I to their lives? in finding mentorship and a safe submitted a proposal to perform space to express their feelings in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, TF: They are interested in through art-making. Students are the district couldn’t support the stories that apply to their lives, able to further dig into and apply project because it fell outside the community and environment. the arts education they receive school year. So I started Legacy I recently took five students to to theater, dance, visual arts, Arts Group to help support the trip. see Grey Rock at the Guthrie. I vocal performance, broadcast Through work and development, told them it was about another recording and fashion design. I the students decided to continue culture and it might blow their have amazing volunteer teachers its mission beyond the trip. That minds. They especially connected on my team — one for every was a powerful statement for me. to the message of imagining the discipline. We also have a college possible in the impossible and student who serves as a bridge MH: I work with students in a overcoming the insurmountable. I from high school to college and a theater program in St. Louis also coach students to understand community education department. Park. They may not initially feel different languages, including body Before founding Legacy Arts connected to “classic texts,” language. Theater helps students Group, I worked at North High but they spend so much time dig into issues they don’t feel School as a dance teacher and watching and observing people on like they can speak about: being

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different, experiencing love, having learning inspired me to pursue my MH: What do you want Guthrie family difficulties, wrestling with career and return to Minneapolis to patrons to understand about demons in their head, struggling teach. It means something to me Legacy Arts Group and its to connect with others. Cultural to make art and build a career here students? relevancy is part of Legacy Arts at home. It’s an investment in the Group’s mission. We want to future. I have a fire for my TF: We want to continue building develop the next generation alma mater. a conversation that does not stop, of artmakers by helping them passing the torch of artmaking understand history and how past and building a passion for the arts generations affect and reflect back MH: What do you hope your through intergenerational sharing, their modern voices. students understand about collaboration, innovation and Shakespeare and his plays? empowerment. Involving student MH: What sparked your interest in voices in the education process is partnering with the Guthrie around TF: The historical context of important to help foster ownership Twelfth Night? Shakespeare is invaluable. The of what they are absorbing. Giving idea that you can’t know where them a platform and empowering TF: When I learned that the cast you’re going until you know where them to exercise their voices is was entirely local community you’ve been hasn’t lost value. When huge because it allows them to members, it felt important to me. you listen to Shakespeare, you share their passion. I’m hoping The cast sharing their artistry can understand it as just another Legacy Arts Group will be here for with young people builds a bridge foreign language. But designers a long time, allowing a beautiful that is priceless. Young people make it relevant and actors give us interchange between how a young often feel they aren’t in control of body language, so the story looks person can be interested in arts their futures. Being mentored by the same no matter the language. and how they translate that from professional actors at the Guthrie And the themes in Twelfth high school to college to the allows the students to see that Night — grief, survival, doing professional world. We want to be the process, through lines and something daring to find your in partnership with the community. scaffolding are the same as theirs. identity, love so blind that you They learn they have the same shot forget who you are and then as the actors onstage. Anything is suffer — are prevalent in every Learn more at www.legacyartsgroup.com. possible. At the first read-through, culture and transcend boundaries listening to Twelfth Night director of race and age. Throughout history Tom Quaintance talk about his in art, artists break stories, abstract passion and personal connection them and use them as a model to to the work was so inspiring. It speak their own language. So we parallels what I’m trying to reflect must understand stories of the past to my students as a homegrown in order to reflect, fragment and talent. When I was a freshman at transpose them in the present. North, my first teacher was a North graduate. That intergenerational

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For Further Reading and Understanding

EDITIONS OF TWELFTH NIGHT Coye, Dale F., Pronouncing Shakespeare Unlimited Shakespeare’s Words: A Guide www.folger.edu/shakespeare- Twelfth Night, The New Cambridge From A to Zounds, Connecticut: unlimited Shakespeare, edited by Elizabeth Greenwood Press, 1998. A biweekly podcast produced by Donno. the Folger Shakespeare Library Crystal, David and Ben Crystal, that features interviews with Twelfth Night, The Arden Shakespeare’s Words: A Glossary Shakespeare experts on topics Shakespeare, edited by Keir Elam. and Language Companion, New ranging from adapting Shakespeare York: Penguin Books, 2002. to what Elizabethans ate to discussions about FILMS Duffin, Ross W., Shakespeare’s current productions. Songbook, New York: W.W. Norton Twelfth Night, directed by John & Company, 2004. Internet Shakespeare Editions Sichel, with as Viola http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/ and Sebastian, Gary Raymond as Garber, Marjorie, Shakespeare After index.html Orsino, Adreinne Corri as Olivia and All, New York: Pantheon, 2004. A collection of materials on as Malvolio, 1970. Shakespeare and his plays, an Granville-Barker, Harley. Prefaces extensive archive of productions Twelfth Night or What You Will, to Shakespeare, New Jersey: and production materials. directed and adapted by Trevor Princeton University Press, 1947. Nunn, with Shakespeare Uncovered as Olivia, as Viola, Greenblatt, Stephen, Will in the www.pbs.org/wnet/shakespeare- as Orsino and Ben World: How Shakespeare Became uncovered Kingsley as Feste, 1996. Shakespeare, New York: W.W. A series that goes in-depth into Norton & Company, 2004. one play per episode. A host with a Twelfth Night, directed and personal tie to the play investigates adapted by Adam Smethurst, with Hotson, Leslie, Shakespeare’s the text and its interpretations and as Viola and Sebastian, Motley, New York: Haskell House visits companies in rehearsal and Shalini Peiris as Olivia and Ben Publishers, 1971. in performance. Full episodes are Whybrow as Orsino, 2018. available online. Twelfth Night is Shapiro, James, Contested Will: included in an episode called “The Who Wrote Shakespeare?, New Comedies,” which is hosted by BOOKS (GENERAL York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. Joely Richardson. SHAKESPEARE STUDIES) Thompson, Ayanna, Passing MIT Shakespeare: The Complete Asimov, Isaac, Asimov’s Guide to Strange: Shakespeare, Race and Works Online Shakespeare (two volumes), New Contemporary America, England: http://shakespeare.mit.edu York: Avenel Books, 1970. Oxford University Press, 2011. PlayShakespeare.com: Auden, W.H., Lectures on The Ultimate Free Shakespeare, New Jersey: ONLINE Shakespeare Resource Princeton University Press, 2000. www.playshakespeare.com Folger Shakespeare Library After registration, receive access to Bell, Robert H., Shakespeare’s Great www.folger.edu the full texts of the plays, synopses, Stage of Fools, New York: Palgrave A wealth of resources, including the First Folio and study aids; also Macmillan, 2011. lesson plans, study guides and produces a smartphone app with interactive activities. the full texts of the plays.

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