We’re back from our annual pilgrimage to Winedale where we saw the University of Texas summer program students perform two plays: Macbeth and Twelfth Night. Twelfth Night was Friday night, and all of the family who were able to go this year enjoyed the comedy together. Twelfth Night is not my favorite play. Malvolio evokes my sympathy as the victim of a cruel practical joke, and I feel uncomfortable laughing at him. I know he’s vain, but other than that his worst fault is that he wants Sir Toby and his drinking buddies to “amend your drunkenness” and settle down. Anyway, everybody makes a fool of himself or herself in Twelfth Night, and the only one who doesn’t get a happy ending is poor, vain Malvolio, who whimpers an empty threat of revenge as the play limps to a close. The student who played Malvolio, by the way, did an excellent job, and therefore made the character even more the central enigma of the play as he engaged my contradictory emotions of ridicule and sympathy.
What other people have said about Twelfth Night:
“The soliloquy of Malvolio is truly comic; he is betrayed to ridicule merely by his pride. The marriage of Olivia, and the succeeding perplexity, though well enough contrived to divert on the stage, wants credibility, and fails to produce the proper instruction required in the drama, as it exhibits no just picture of life.” ~Samuel Johnson.
“Refined minds today are apt to find the trick put upon him as distasteful, his persecution too cruel. Elizabethans enjoyed that sort of thing; we are no better–though our sympathies may well be with him, endeavouring to do his duty and keep some order in the house among the hangers-on, drunks, and wasters.” ~AL. Rowse, Introduction to Twelfth Night.
“Everyone, except the reluctant jester, Feste, is essentially mad without knowing it. When the wretched Malvolio is confined in the dark room for the insane, he ought to be joined there by Orsino, Olivia, Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Maria, Sebastian, Antonio, and even Viola, for the whole ninefold are at least borderline in their behavior.” ~Harold Bloom, Shakespeare, The Invention of the Human.
“It is a wildly improbable, hugely entertaining fantasy. And just beneath the surface are life’s darkest, most terrible truths.” ~Ed Friedlander, Enjoying Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare.
“If this were play’d upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.” ~Fabian in Twelfth Night.
Macbeth I found the more congenial of the two plays, even though “congenial” is an odd word to use about a play filled with murder, betrayal, and evil witchery. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are thorough-going villains and deserve the end they get. Malvolio’s pride only leads him to be foolish and absurd and pathetically vengeful. Macbeth and his lady screw their (malevolent) courage to the sticking place, literally, and commit bloody, violent murder and then they both go really, truly insane, not just pretend-mad like Malvolio and his tormentors.
I guess I can imagine myself in Malvolio’s place, being made ridiculous by a bunch of practical jokers and by my own stupidity, but the evil deeds of the Macbeth duo are beyond me. So Twelfth Night makes me more uncomfortable than Macbeth, and I can watch Macbeth with a more detached feeling.
The students who played Macbeth and Lady Macbeth gave a chilling and superb performance. I did feel sorry for poor, tormented Macbeth, somewhat against my will, and I was glad to think that I know no Lady Macbeth who would goad her husband to such vile murderous deeds. At least, I don’t think I know anyone quite that far gone.
All in all, our weekend in the country was an enjoyable success. In addition to the plays, I finished two books, Out of my Mind by Sharon M. Draper and Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card, and started a third, Shanghai Girls by Lisa See. I’ll write more about the three books soon, I hope.
If you get a chance to see some Shakespeare this month, or anytime, I highly recommend it.
We enjoyed a wonderful performance of Romeo and Juliet just last week at our library. We are also planning a trip to Knoxville to see another sometime this month.
Glad to hear of your Shakespearean experience!
Judylynn