DOCSLIB.ORG

MALVOLIO the PLAY “TWELFTH NIGHT, Or, WHAT YOU WILL”

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
MALVOLIO the PLAY “TWELFTH NIGHT, Or, WHAT YOU WILL” THE MAN MALVOLIO THE PLAY “TWELFTH NIGHT, or, WHAT YOU WILL” THE FACTS WRITTEN: Shakespeare wrote the play in late 1600/early 1601. AGE: The Bard was 37 years old when he wrote the play. (Shakespeare B.1564-D.1616) CHRONO: The play falls in 23th place in the canon of 39 plays; Shakespeare wrote the play “on deadline” (see “Deadline” below) and nearly at the same time as completing “Hamlet”; “the zany spirit of ‘what you will’ dominated him [at the time] as a defense against the bitterness of the three dark comedies, the “problem plays”, just after: “Troilus and Cressida”, “All’s Well That Ends Well” and “Measure for Measure”. (Bloom) DEADLINE: After reading the play it often strikes one that it is oddly named. Twelfth Night is of course the twelfth day after Christmas celebrated on January 6. The play holds no singular reference to any lingering cold Winter weather for the “May-morning skirmish” in the play nor are there any references to the biblical story of the arrival of the Magi made by any of the characters. The title of the play refers solely to the “why” and “what for” of the play’s writing. It seems a London Lawyers Guild commissioned Shakespeare in late 1600 to write an amusing play for the month-long Twelfth Night celebrations beginning in January of 1601. He did so and the play was called “Twelfth Night” after the occasion and not because of anything in the play itself. The subtitle “What You Will” perhaps more effectively describes Shakespeare’s feelings about how the action of the play unfolds. Page 2 Becoming aware of the commission the Queen “encouraged” Shakespeare to complete the script early enough for a private court performance honoring the departure of the Italian diplomat, Duke Orsino. (It is conjectured that he appropriately changed the original name of the romantic hero to honor the Duke.) GENRE: Frequently listed in “The High Comedies” as a “warm comedy”, the play is considered by some scholars to be “of no genre” because it renders “no just picture of life…although a just representation of general nature” (Johnson); on the other hand, the play “refuses to take itself seriously, and we would do it violence by such realistic expectations.” (Bloom) SOURCE: Even though scholars attribute the invention of the Malvolio sub-plot to Shakespeare, it seems the fable of the twins and of Orsino and Olivia “could have been derived from an old Italian comedy with plot elements drawn from the short story ‘Of Apollonius and Silla’ by Barnabe Rich based on a story by Matteo Bandello” (Trewin) FIRST : “Twelfth Night or What You Will“ was probably first privately performed as part of the Twelfth Night celebrations held by Queen Elizabeth I at Whitehall Palace on 6 January 1601 to mark the end of the embassy of the Italian diplomat, the Duke of Orsino. However, in line with the commission from the London Lawyers Guild the play was first publicly performed on Candlemas Day (February 2) 1601, in Middle Temple Hall, where “at our feast a barrister named John Manningham saw and recorded it.” (How difficult was THAT??!) CRITICS: The play was an immediate success and is now one of the most loved and familiar romantic comedies in the canon. However, critics were not often kind as early as sixty years later in 1662 and on throughout the mid-eighteenth century. “But a silly play, and not related at all to the name of the day” wrote Samuel Pepys. C.L Barber later commented: “A Feast of Fools touches its limits soon enough; the play is decentered – there is almost no significant action, perhaps because nearly everyone behaves involuntarily. A much funnier Page 3 Nietzsche might have conceived it, since forces somewhat beyond the characters seem to be living their lives for them.” FAMOUS: Viola as the page Cesario: “I am not what I am.” (Act III, Sc 1, Line 142) – the gentle self-mockery is jarring in the moment as it echoes the same exact line in a very different tone from Iago in “Othello” (Act I, Sc 1, Line 65) and travesties St Paul’s “By the grace of God, I am what I am.” The over-confident and bold Malvalio at the beginning of the play’s high point, “yellow stockings” scene: “ ‘Be not afraid of greatness’: ‘twas well writ. ‘Some are born great…Some achieve greatness….And some have greatness thrust upon them.’ “ STRUCTURE: “Orsino’s amiable erotic lunacy establishes the tone of ‘Twelfth Night’…..Shakespeare’s acute sense that all sexual love is arbitrary in its origins but overdetermined in its teleology [purpose rather than causes by which they arise] is at the center of the play……Freud thought that all object-choice [falling in love] was either narcissistic or a propping-against….’Even so quickly may one catch the plague?’ is Olivia’s rhetorical question after Cesario’s very first scene with her……Self-indulgence and vulnerable self-surrender touch on sublimity.” (Bloom) ACTORS: Even though the names of the original cast members remain lost in time it is believed that “Shakespeare himself might well have played the role of Antonio in the 1601 production as well as the role of Antonio in ‘The Merchant of Venice’ ” in 1597 (Bloom); the homoerotic overtones generated by both characters have fallen on a continuum from “embraced” to “underplayed” throughout the history of the play’s stage and film productions. TRIVIA: In the United States “Twelfth Night” was staged first in Boston (1794) RECENT: The highly-regarded, award-winning Stratford Festival in Ontario opened its permanent theater with a production directed by Tyrone Page 4 Guthrie in 1957. Katharine Hepburn (“insecurely cast as Viola”) starred in a revival of the play in 1960 in Stratford, Connecticut. FILM: Several films and “filmed-live” stage productions have been undertaken in the past years. (Some are listed at the end of this document.) The most successful in the latter category splashed onto the screen from the National Theater in 2019 with the role of Malvolio altered to star one of London’s finest comic actresses, Tamsin Grieg as MalvoliA. OPERA An opera by Smetana called “Viola” was highly successful in 1881. Songs and incidental musical interludes were composed by Sibelius for a second operatic production in 1909. A celebrated French production by Jacques Copeau ran for several performances at the Vieux-Colombier in Paris in 1914. THE PLAY SETTING: The play is set in the land of Illyria. In actual geography, Illyria is the coastal district what we now call Yugoslavia on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea across from Italy. In Shakespeare’s time what had once been Illyria then became Serbia and was still part of the 700- year Turkish Ottoman Empire; parts of the coast, however, were controlled by Venice and were Italian in culture. YEAR: Even though the period in which the play is set is not obvious, the action DOES unfold in the merry month May as referenced by Fabian’s line plotting the dual as “more matter for a May morning.” (Act III, Sc 4, 142). We assume we are in the present year of 1601. KEY ROLES: VIOLA / “Cesario”: A young woman of aristocratic birth and the play’s protagonist, Viola fears the death of her brother in the shipwreck but chooses to move on from in hopes of returning to her home. Swiftly disguised as a male page and enlisted by Duke Orsino as a messenger to his hoped-for love, Viola speedily falls in love with the Duke. Confusion prevails. Her poignant plight is the central conflict in the play. Page 5 DUKE ORSINO: A powerful nobleman in the country of Illyria, highly-romantic Duke Orsino is in love with love and currently lovesick for the beautiful Lady Olivia. He soon become fond of his handsome new page boy, “Cesario”, as a messenger to Olivia. Osino is a vehicle through which the play explores the absurdity of love. His attraction to the ostensibly male “Cesario” injects sexual ambiguity into his character. COUNTESS OLIVIA: This “virtuous maid” at first in love with grief, is courted by Orsino and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. She remains in mourning for her recently- deceased brother. She and Orsino are similar characters in that each seems to enjoy wallowing in his or her own misery. Olivia seems to have no difficulty speedily transferring her affections from one love interest to the next, however, suggesting that her romantic feelings—like most emotions in the play—do not run deep. MALVOLIO: Countess Olivia’s self-loving, straitlaced and pompous steward, Malvolio is exceptionally efficient but also exceptionally self-righteous with a poor opinion of drinking, singing, and fun. His priggishness and haughty attitude earn him the enmity of Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Maria, who play a cruel trick on him, making him believe that Olivia is in love with him. In his fantasies about marrying his mistress, he reveals a powerful ambition to rise above his social class. His ultimate treatment, as even Toby realizes (“I would we were all rid of this knavery”) goes beyond a joke. Revenge is assured. MARIA Olivia’s clever, daring, mean-spirited “waiting-gentlewoman”, Maria is remarkably similar to her antagonist, Malvolio -- both harbor aspirations of rising in the world through marriage. Maria succeeds where Malvolio fails more likely because she is more in tune with the anarchic, topsy-turvy spirit that animates the play. By the play’s end Maria marries Sir Toby Belch. FESTE The clown or fool of Olivia’s household, Feste moves between the homes of Olivia AND Orsino.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Twelfth Night Act II.Iii MARIA Sweet Sir Toby, Be Patient for Tonight: Since
    Twelfth Night Act II.iii MARIA Sweet Sir Toby, be patient for tonight: since the youth of the count's was today with thy lady, she is much out of quiet. For Monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him: if I do not gull him into a nayword, and make him a common recreation, do not think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed: I know I can do it. SIR TOBY BELCH Possess us, possess us; tell us something of him. MARIA Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan. SIR ANDREW O, if I thought that I'ld beat him like a dog! SIR TOBY BELCH What, for being a puritan? thy exquisite reason, dear knight? SIR ANDREW I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have reason good enough. MARIA The devil a puritan that he is, or any thing constantly, but a time-pleaser; an affectioned ass, that cons state without book and utters it by great swarths: the best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks, with excellencies, that it is his grounds of faith that all that look on him love him; and on that vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work. SIR TOBY BELCH What wilt thou do? MARIA I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love; wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated. I can write very like my lady your niece: on a forgotten matter we can hardly make distinction of our hands.
    [Show full text]
  • Teacher Resource Pack I, Malvolio
    TEACHER RESOURCE PACK I, MALVOLIO WRITTEN & PERFORMED BY TIM CROUCH RESOURCES WRITTEN BY TIM CROUCH unicorntheatre.com timcrouchtheatre.co.uk I, MALVOLIO TEACHER RESOURCES INTRODUCTION Introduction by Tim Crouch I played the part of Malvolio in a production of Twelfth Night many years ago. Even though the audience laughed, for me, it didn’t feel like a comedy. He is a desperately unhappy man – a fortune spent on therapy would only scratch the surface of his troubles. He can’t smile, he can’t express his feelings; he is angry and repressed and deluded and intolerant, driven by hate and a warped sense of self-importance. His psychiatric problems seem curiously modern. Freud would have had a field day with him. So this troubled man is placed in a comedy of love and mistaken identity. Of course, his role in Twelfth Night would have meant something very different to an Elizabethan audience, but this is now – and his meaning has become complicated by our modern understanding of mental illness and madness. On stage in Twelfth Night, I found the audience’s laughter difficult to take. Malvolio suffers the thing we most dread – to be ridiculed when he is at his most vulnerable. He has no resolution, no happy ending, no sense of justice. His last words are about revenge and then he is gone. This, then, felt like the perfect place to start with his story. My play begins where Shakespeare’s play ends. We see Malvolio how he is at the end of Twelfth Night and, in the course of I, Malvolio, he repairs himself to the state we might have seen him in at the beginning.
    [Show full text]
  • Twelfth Night
    SAMPLE – INCOMPLETE SCRIPT a Community Shakespeare Company edition of Twelfth Night original verse adaptation by Richard Carter 1731 Center Road Lopez Island, WA 98261 360.468.3516 [email protected] Enriching young lives, cultivating community” NOTES ABOUT PRODUCTION The author asks that anyone planning to stage one of his adaptations please contact him for permission, via the CSC website: www.communityshakespeare.org . There are no performance royalties due. He asks that scripts be purchased for every member of a cast. Frequently asked questions include, “What if my group is mostly girls?” Cross-casting (females playing male roles) is almost inevitable; once it is explained that males played all the female roles in Shakespeare’s time, this obstacle is easily overcome. Moreover, girls see that many of the “big” parts are male, so those wanting more stage time gravitate toward male roles. The author also encourages groups to take certain liberties, such as changing the sex of some roles. With little alteration of the text, a duke may become a duchess, an uncle may become an aunt. In answer to the question, “What if I have too many (or too few) students?” some parts may be divided amongst several actors (a messenger becomes two messengers), or actors may take on more than one role. In short, do what is necessary to make the play fun and accessible for young people; the author did! Synopsis of the play Orsino, Duke of Illyria, is in love with Olivia, a proud and beautiful countess. She spurns his suit, being in mourning for her late father and brother.
    [Show full text]
  • Historical Context Elizabethantheatres
    Historical Context The first Elizabethan playhouse was an open air theatre built in 1567 by James Burbage called “The Theatre”. After it’s success other playhouses were built : in 1577 “The Courtain”, in 1587 “The Rose”, and in 1595 “The Swan”. In 1599 the Lord Chamberlain’s Man rebuilt “The Globe” which became the most important centre of performances. Elizabethan Theatres Performances took place during the afternoon and were acted only by man and boys. The audiences were made by all sorts of people, reach and poor who had stand on the ground, theatres were designed as large wooden structures, circular or octagonal in shape, with three tiers of galleries surrounding a yard open to the sky. The stage was roofed and was very high, and there were railings between the yard and the lower gallery. There was no scenery and the audience had to image the scene by listening to the language of the actors. There was no courtain and no intervals, so they were very quick. The platform stage was pushed out into the audience who stood around in three sides. This create assends of close intimacy between actors and audiences. Context Romeo and Juliet is one of the most famous plays written by William Shakespeare (1564-1616). When it first appeared on the stage probably in 1595 it was a very popular tale in Elizabethan times, and many versions were available. The sources of the play are Arthur Brooke’s poem “The Tragical Historye of Romeus and Juliet” (1562) which was a translation from the French Matteo Bandello’s novella “Romeo e Giulietta” (1554).
    [Show full text]
  • Spotlight on Learning a Pioneer Theatre Company Classroom Companion
    Spotlight on Learning a Pioneer Theatre Company Classroom Companion Pioneer Theatre Company’s Student Matinee Program is made possible through the support of Salt Lake County’s Zoo, Arts and Parks Program, Salt Directed by Larry Carpenter Lake City Arts Council/ March 30 - April 14, 2018 Arts Learning Program, By William Shakespeare The Simmons Family Foundation, The Meldrum Foundation Director’s Notes Endowment Fund and By Larry Carpenter, director of Twelfth Night R. Harold Burton Foundation. Spotlight on Learning is provided to students through a grant provided by the George Q. Morris Foundation Twelfth Night is probably the best known of Shakespeare’s Approx. running time: comedies. It is a later play, written in 1599 and bracketed by Much 2 hours and thirty minutes, which in- Ado About Nothing, Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It and cludes one fifteen-minute intermission. Hamlet. All of these plays were written and produced in less than a two-year period when the Bard of Avon was at the height of his Student Talk-Back: genius. There will be a Student Talk-Back directly after the performance. At the time, all of these plays were topical. The citizens of London were experiencing the end of the Elizabethan Age—James I would come to power in 1603. The themes of royal succession, parliamentary politics, religious fanaticism, gender identity, Continued on page 2 Director’s Notes, continued from page 1 The Bard of Avon burgeoning economic instability, class structure and the plague, to name a few, were intertwined into Excerpted from Biography. Shakespeare’s works.
    [Show full text]
  • The Representation of Puritans in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
    AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies, Volume2, Number 1, February 2018 Pp. 97-105 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol2no1.7 The Representation of Puritans in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night Rachid MEHDI Department of English, Faculty of Art Abderahmane-Mira University of Bejaia, Algeria Abstract This article is a study on the representation of Puritans in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night; or, What You Will, one of his most popular comic play in the modern theatre. In mocking Malvolio’s morality and ridiculous behaviour, Shakespeare wanted to denounce Puritans’ sober society in early modern England. Indeed, Puritans were depicted in the play as being selfish, idiot, hypocrite, and killjoy. In the same way, many other writers of different generations, obviously influenced by Shakespeare, have espoused his views and consequently contributed to promote this anti-Puritan literature, which is still felt today. This article discusses whether Shakespeare’s portrayal of Puritans was accurate or not. To do so, the writer first attempts to define the term “Puritan,” as the latter is quite equivocal, then take some Puritans’ characteristics, namely hypocrisy and killjoy, as provided in the play, and analyze them in the light of the studies of some historians and scholars, experts on the post Reformation Puritanism, to demonstrate that Shakespeare’s view on Puritanism is completely caricatural. Keywords: caricature, early modern theatre, Malvolio, Puritans, satire Cite as: MEHDI, R. (2018). The Representation of Puritans in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies, 2 (1). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol2no1.7 Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies 97 eISSN: 2550-1542 |www.awej-tls.org AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies Volume, 2 Number 1, February 2018 The Representation of Puritans in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night MEHDI Introduction Puritans had been the target of many English writers during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
    [Show full text]
  • Reimagining Shakespeare in the Young Adult Contemporary
    REIMAGINING SHAKESPEARE IN THE YOUNG ADULT CONTEMPORARY NOVEL by Jodi Lyn Turchin A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL December 2017 Copyright by Jodi Lyn Turchin 2017 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to express sincere gratitude to her committee members for all of their guidance and support, and special thanks to my advisor for being with me every step of the way during the writing of this manuscript. iv ABSTRACT Author: Jodi Lyn Turchin Title: Reimaginging Shakespeare in the Young Adult Contemporary Novel Institution: Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: Dr. Emily Stockard Degree: Master of Arts Year: 2017 This research focuses on how Young Adult (YA) novelists adapt Shakespeare’s plays to address the concerns of a contemporary teenage audience. Through the qualitative method of content analysis, I examined adaptations of the three most commonly read texts in the high school curriculum: Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and Hamlet. The research looked for various patterns in the adaptations and analyzed the choices made by the authors in aligning their texts to or deviating from the original plays. A final chapter addresses practical classroom application in using adaptations to teach the plays to high school students. v REIMAGINING SHAKESPEARE IN THE YOUNG ADULT CONTEMPORARY NOVEL INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Book Review: Celia R. Daileader. <Em>Racism, Misogyny, and the Othello Myth</Em>
    Book Reviews 149 Notes 1 Augustine Curio, A Notable Historie of the Saracens, trans. Thomas Newton (London, 1575), sigs C3v-C4r. 2 Public Record Office, London. State Papers 12/275/94. 3 See the examples in Matthew Dimmock, New Turkes: Dramatizing Islam and the Ottomans in Early Modern England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). 4 Robert Wilson, A right excellent and famous Comedy called the three Ladies of Lon- don ... (London, 1584), sig. F1v. Celia R. Daileader. Racism, Misogyny, and the Othello Myth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp x, 256. Celia R. Daileader’s lively and provocative discussion of Othello and inter- racial sexuality begins with her concept of ‘Othellophilia’: ‘the critical and cultural fixation in Shakespeare’s tragedy of inter-racial marriage to the exclu- sion of broader definitions, and more positive visions, of inter-racial eroti- cism’ (6). Why, she wonders, did the pattern of a sexual relationship between a black man and a white woman (as opposed to a black woman and a white man) come to be such a prevalent literary trope? Antony and Cleopatra is also a great Shakespearean tragedy featuring inter-racial sexuality—assuming one believes that the dramatist’s Cleopatra was meant to be black—but it has never achieved the universal appeal of Othello. Daileader finds the answer in the imbrication of racism with misogyny. Mutually reinforcing constructs, racism and misogyny work hand in hand to demonize not just black sexuality but female sexuality as well. Ever since the early modern period, which begins Daileader’s survey, the culture of white patriarchy, frightened of female sexual autonomy, has elided that fear with a horror of miscegenation.
    [Show full text]
  • Shakespeare on Travel in As You Like It and Othello
    Selected Papers of the Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference Volume 11 Article 4 2020 Knowing the World: Shakespeare on Travel in As You Like It and Othello David Summers Capital University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/spovsc Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Please take a moment to share how this work helps you through this survey. Your feedback will be important as we plan further development of our repository. Recommended Citation Summers, David (2020) "Knowing the World: Shakespeare on Travel in As You Like It and Othello," Selected Papers of the Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference: Vol. 11 , Article 4. Available at: https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/spovsc/vol11/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Literary Magazines at IdeaExchange@UAkron, the institutional repository of The University of Akron in Akron, Ohio, USA. It has been accepted for inclusion in Selected Papers of the Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference by an authorized administrator of IdeaExchange@UAkron. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Knowing the World: Shakespeare on Travel in As You Like It and Othello David Summers, Capital University etting to know the world through personal travel, particularly by means of the “semester abroad,” seems to G me to be one of the least controversial planks in the Humanities professors’ manifesto. However, reading Shakespeare with an eye toward determining his attitude toward travel creates a disjuncture between our conviction that travel generally, and studying abroad in particular, is an enriching experience, and Shakespeare’s tendency to hold the benefits of travel suspect.
    [Show full text]
  • Gulling of Malvolio in Twelfth Night
    Subject-English Hons. Core Course Semester II Paper -ENGH-H-CC-T-4 Teacher’s name-Nilanjana Chakraborty Gulling of Malvolio in Twelfth Night: Malvolio is the steward of Olivia’s household. He dislikes all manner of fun and festivity and for that reason he reproaches Sir Toby for making late night gathering. Maria calls him a kind of ‘Puritan’. His puritanism and aversion to fun misplace him in the jolly society of the Illyrians. He responds to revelry and humour of the household with indignation. His duty is to maintain order in the household. As Olivia is not really in mourning, she enjoys Feste’s disorderly playfulness. But Malvolio’s reaction to this disorder is ‘distempered’. He finds nothing but offence in Feste’s remarks. Malvolio is sick of self-love and Olivia says this right on his face, “O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite.” Actually, he is suffering from the exaggerated sense of self-importance. He also lacks a sense of humour. Malvolio dislikes parties, drinking, merriment of all sorts, and so he is very critical about the conduct of Sir Toby and others who are always involved in frivolities. Sir Toby, Maria, Feste and Sir Andrew Aguecheek openly resent Malvolio and Maria calls him an “affectioned ass” who uses high-flown language without necessarily knowing its proper meaning. He is not resented only as a Puritan, but also for the fact that he aspires to marry Olivia. Before he sees the letter, he is indulging his ambitious and substantial day-dreams; they include not only marrying Olivia and thereby becoming Count Malvolio, but also, from that position reproving Sir Toby.
    [Show full text]
  • What Size Viola?
    From Violins and Violinists December 1943 What Size Viola? VIOLA EXPERIMENTA By Robert Dolejsi When the Violin finally reached her destiny in the ideal instrument that knows no peer today, and was recognized as the stringed mistress of the soprano family, it fell to the unfortunate lot of that hapless maiden Viola to become the subject of avid experimentation. In their search for an instrument of identical design and superb characteristics, makers, luthiers, artisans and, (indirectly through suggestion) composers and players, conducted intense experiments to find a medium of deeper register that would represent the alto and tenor voice and thus complete the quartet of strings. There is ample ground in all instrumental bibliography to support the theory that experimentation was one of the chief causes for the numerous sizes in fiddles that marked instrument making in the viola category from the 17th century onward. That generic English term Viol designated the instrument that succeeded the medieval fiddle. In literature at least, though not in actual invention, it preceded the violin family; for it must be emphasized that contrary to general conception, the viol was more the precursor and not the predecessor or direct ancestor of the violin. This distinction in progenitorship belongs to that branch of the instrumental tree represented by the rebec and Iyra—and all three branches were growing and developing simultaneously side by side. The experimental premise had already been laid in the highly variegated family of viols. Oddly enough, and paradoxically too, it appears that the viola or tenor ( the names were interchangeable during a period when great confusion in sizes and types existed ), was the first of the viol family to adopt changes in tuning and string number.
    [Show full text]
  • Twelfth Night KEY CHARACTERS and SENSORY MOMENTS
    Twelfth Night KEY CHARACTERS AND SENSORY MOMENTS Characters Viola Sebastian Olivia Malvolio Sir Andrew Sir Toby Feste Maria Orsino Antonio Sensory Moments Below is a chronological summary of the key sensory moments in each act and scene. Latex balloons are used onstage throughout the show. Visual, dialogue or sound cues indicating dramatic changes in light, noise or movement are in bold. PRESHOW • A preshow announcement plays over the loudspeaker and instruments tune onstage. ACT ONE SCENE ONE SENSORY MOMENTS • Feste begins to sing a song. When he puts DESCRIPTION a paper ship in the water, the storm begins. At Duke Orsino’s palace in Illyria, Cesario and There is frequent loud thunder, flickering others sing for Orsino. He’s in love with the lights and flashes of lightning via strobe countess Olivia, but it’s unrequited because she lights. Actors shout during the turmoil, is in mourning for her brother and won’t receive cymbals crash and drums rumble. his messengers. • The storm sequence lasts about 90 seconds. • After the storm, lights slowly illuminate SENSORY MOMENTS the stage. • Actors begin singing a song. Orsino enters the stage and picks up a balloon. When he walks to the center of the stage, the balloon SCENE TWO pops loudly. • When Orsino says, “Love-thoughts lie rich DESCRIPTION when canopied with bowers,” the actors Viola washes ashore in Illyria, saved by the leave the stage, suspenseful music plays and ship’s captain. She asks the captain to help her the lights go dark. disguise herself so she can get work in Orsino’s court.
    [Show full text]