Twelfth Night

[meteordust]

"I've never read Twelfth Night," I said to L, "but I always hear people talk about it. It has twins, and disguises, and mistaken identities, and hijinks. It'll be fun to watch a comedy for once!"

So we went to see Twelfth Night by Bell Shakespeare at the Sydney Opera House.

Surprise! It was not fun. It was mildly traumatic.

Well, okay, most of it was fun. But, spoilers, they played the Malvolio subplot as realism instead of farce, and it was kind of upsetting. Especially since they had genderswapped the character to be Malvolia, and that made the situation feel way more vulnerable. More later.


Genderplay

There were things I did like! Twelfth Night explores gender and sexuality, and this production does some interesting things with that.

When Viola first appears, she is played by a female actor. Then when she disguises herself as Cesario, the character is played by a male actor - who then continues in the role of Viola for the rest of the story.

When Sebastian first appears, he is played by the same female actor who played Viola - who then continues in the role of Sebastian for the rest of the story.

For first time viewers like me and L, it did cause some temporary confusion figuring out which twin was which. The synopsis in the program book helped.

What I liked about this casting was how it changed the dynamics of the romantic relationships:
- The tension in the flirtation-in-disguise scenes was with opposite gender actors.
- The celebration in the happily-ever-after scenes was with same gender actors.

In addition, as mentioned, the character of Malvolia was genderswapped, and the character of Antonio was crosscast. I remember how it blew my mind years ago when Cassius was played by a woman, and now this kind of practice has become commonplace. This is one change in theatre I really love.


Music

The other highlight for me was the music! All the songs in Twelfth Night were set to music by Sarah Blasko, who transformed Shakespeare's original lyrics into pop ballads. Gorgeous and melancholy and wistful, and sung beautifully by Feste, accompanied by piano.


Malvolia

So the program book summary for this subplot is, "Sir Toby, his friend Sir Andrew, the fool Feste, and chambermaid Maria play a trick on a pompous steward, Malvolia. They forge a love letter to her in Olivia's hand, convincing Malvolia to present herself to Olivia dressed in ridiculous clothing. After Malvolia does so, they lock her in a dark room and taunt her, pretending she has gone mad."

I remember reading once about a test screening for a comedy movie. In one scene, a piano falls on someone, squashing them. A classic slapstick trope. But in the test screening, a trickle of blood comes from under the piano. The test audience did not like it. That touch of realism broke their immersion.

I feel like the director of this production either:

(1) thought that Malvolio had always been treated horribly, and she wanted to pull out the fridge horror aspects to hammer the point home, or
(2) thought that there were already hundreds of productions that played it straight, and she wanted to do a dark and edgy version of this particular subplot.

Me? I just wanted fun hijinks! Not whatever this was.

Detailed spoilers.

When Malvolia yells at Sir Toby and the others for their partying, at first they're all cowed and frozen. Then Sir Toby yells back, and now Malvolia is shocked and frozen. He walks right up to her, and runs his hands down her chest. Then he yanks on the cord of her dressing gown, and it falls open to reveal her nightgown.

The audience is dead silent. The characters are still frozen.

Something breaks the tension and Malvolia leaves and the scene ends. I can't remember what, because I was busy going, "WTF WTF WTF? Did they just do that? WTF?"

The thing with the forged love letter was actually one of the bits I liked. Olivia hates yellow stockings with cross garters, which the conspirators trick Malvolia into thinking Olivia likes. Yellow stockings are pretty tame by modern standards, so this production has Malvolia dress up in a bright yellow latex jumpsuit, for a similar impact.

When Malvolia gets dragged off to be locked up as mad, they gag her with a red ball gag, which is a disturbing visual.

There's a whole scene where the conspirators are onstage speaking into the air, taunting Malvolia who is presumably delivering her lines from offstage. She is pleading to be let out of a small dark room, and sounds incredibly distressed.

Finally they leave. The lid of the piano opens. Malvolia unfolds herself.

She was in there the whole damn time.

She climbs out, very slowly and painfully. Her yellow jumpsuit is folded down around her waist, showing her black bra. She slumps down next to the piano, her breathing ragged. Again the audience is dead silent. Fade to black.

After the climax and denouement, when the truth has been revealed, Malvolia says, in a choked voice, "I will be revenged," and storms off stage. In the closing moments with the happy couples together, the sky darkens, and then lightning flashes and thunder rumbles. An ominous ending.


Thoughts

If art is supposed to inspire emotion or make you think, well, it certainly worked. If I've spent a disproportionate amount of this post on a relatively small part of the story, well, it probably reflects what was taking up my headspace afterward.

I'm still not decided on how I should feel about it. I'm very hesitant to say to an artist, "You shouldn't have tried that." But on the other hand, does the artist have a responsibility to the audience? Are there promises made about the tone and content of a story? How do you balance an audience already familiar with the story and excited for new permutations on it, with an audience experiencing the story for the very first time? And will L be up for another Shakespearean comedy any time soon?

Comments

[ivyfic]

Twelfth Night is one of my favorites of the bard. I have never seen a production that was actually comic about Malvolio, though. To genuinely find that subplot funny, you'd have to believe that being pompous and above your station deserved that level of torture. Twelfth Night is a comedy--in that it ends in marriages--but it's always been fairly melancholy.

There's a version on NT at Home (which you can rent a la carte if you don't have a subscription) that also cross casts a woman as Malvolia, in this case Tamsin Grieg. I really, really enjoy this production. They manage to make all the Sir Toby stuff genuinely funny. And with Malvolia, Grieg plays both the buffoonery and the tragedy, and they give the last moment of the play to her walking away, head held high. There's also an undeniable shade of queer bashing when you have a female Malvolia--it's unavoidable that part of what she's being humiliated for is not just loving above her station but loving a woman.

I find it interesting as modern productions try to queer Shakespeare--you can bring out the very queer things already in the text, but without cross casting Viola as you observed, the endings are always straight.

I think with Malvolio it really matters how the production handles that character. And it may be the case that there's no version that you'd be okay with.

(I mean, that's where I am with Taming of the Shrew--even the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton version which tries its hardest to empower Kate, I can't deal with the level of abuse in that play any more. Certainly not knowing that audiences were meant to find it all both justified and hilarious.)

[meteordust]

Thanks for the extra context about Twelfth Night! That's actually helpful to know that the Malvolio subplot typically isn't played as comic. And thanks for the rec of the NT at Home version! It sounds very appealing, and I like the idea of Malvolia getting to walk away with pride.

There's also an undeniable shade of queer bashing when you have a female Malvolia

That was definitely one of the undercurrents I got when I was watching. Nothing overt that I can remember the production doing, but it's a real world context you can't help thinking about.

but without cross casting Viola as you observed, the endings are always straight

In the program book, the director talked about how in Shakespeare's day, the all-male cast meant that the ending resulted in a series of male couples. And she wanted to have the dramaturgical effect of an all-male cast without having an all-male cast. (My sister pointed out that it means a leading role for a female actor gets taken instead by a male actor. But I suppose every production can't be everything, and this one is doing one particular thing.)

I think with Malvolio it really matters how the production handles that character.

Yeah, I can imagine it might be worse if what Malvolio went through just got brushed aside lightly. I appreciate that this production treated the character very sympathetically. I think my strong reaction was because of how unexpectedly dark it was, and the specific way they chose to portray it. But I'd be interested to see how other productions have done this story.

that's where I am with Taming of the Shrew

I have vague memories of having watched Kiss Me Kate, but yeah, I don't think I would feel up to watching Taming of the Shrew.

[eggsbenedict]

Oh no, that sounds like a pretty distressing curveball. I feel like being edgy is part of Bell Shakespeare's remit... I'll never forget their early performance of Macbeth, and not for the best reasons :/

[meteordust]

Yeah, I would have been more prepared if it was one of the tragedies, but nothing I'd osmosed about Twelfth Night gave me any clue. Sorry about your Macbeth experience! Somehow I've had this idea that Bell Shakespeare is one of the more traditional companies, but I guess the things they've been experimental about up till now were all things that were appealing to me personally.