etching of Malvolio, cross-gartered

Twelfth Night, or What You Will by its very title invites actors, directors and audiences alike to construct their own play. Power, desire, dominance—call it what you will—drives the characters in this late comedy. The main characters live the leisurely life of the aristocracy, and have time to play games with love. We as the audience become part of the leisure class, not having to worry about the outcome; we trust that everything will turn out for the best. After all, this is a comedy, isn't it?

Twelfth Night was written around 1601, just before Shakespeare turned his attention to more introspective works such as Othello and King Lear. Similar in some respects to the later, so-called "problem plays," Twelfth Night explores more than how these mismatched couples see their way clear to falling in love. Conflicts of power, class structure and sexuality run rampant through the text. Through the centuries, performances of Twelfth Night, emphasizing different aspects of the play, have changed the focus of the work—and even the perceived "lead role."

A barrister named John Manningham recorded in his diary that on February 2, 1602, he saw a performance of a play entitled Twelve night or what you will. He noted especially the character of Malvolio, calling his deception "a good device." Richard Burbage created the role, most likely emphasizing the comic aspects of the character. Manningham was apparently not the only one who took a liking to the ambitious courtier. The play proved popular, and by 1623 came to be known simply by the name of the audience's favorite character, Malvolio. At this time, women’s roles would have been played by young boys or men; the part of Viola called for a boy playing a woman pretending to be a man. The inherent sexual complications seem to have been unimportant to these early productions; Shakespeare's audiences were accustomed to seeing men playing women's roles.

During the Restoration (after the monarchy was restored in 1660 and the theaters reopened), productions of Twelfth Night were not well received. Some bits and pieces of the play were incorporated into other works, but the play as a whole was not generally performed. By 1741, however, the play was once again an established favorite among London's theatergoers. The famous actor-manager David Garrick presented Twelfth Night at least once a season at Drury Lane until the end of the eighteenth century, now employing women in the female roles. The main focus of the play continued to be the machinations of Malvolio. The principal actor still took the role of Malvolio, and he still interpreted it as a comic part.

Actor-managers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries moved away from the schemes of Malvolio. Their productions teemed with festive, musical and spectacular elements. Favorite selections from other Shakespeare plays and sonnets were incorporated into the play—musical interludes from The Tempest and Venus and Adonis for example. Although Malvolio still figured prominently in productions, he was portrayed as a more dignified steward. Frequently during this period the production was set in the Spanish Golden Age, giving Malvolio all the pomp and circumstance of an hidalgo or Grandee.

Henry Irving's production of 1884 at the Lyceum Theatre in London cut entirely the music and songs from the play. He played the role of Malvolio with emphasis not on the comedic aspects of the character, but on what he perceived to be its "tragic nuances." Instead of focusing on the humor of the plotters in the play, Irving encouraged his audiences to see the desperate side of the characters. This interpretation led to audiences actually booing Malvolio by the final act, and to critics decrying his performance of this standard comedic favorite. Irving brought this production to America, where it received the same unfavorable reception.

Mark Rylance as Olivia

By the very end of the nineteenth century, Twelfth Night was revived as a traditional comedy. This time the focus moved from any one character to the setting—and the more elaborate, the better, accommodating the lavish expectations of theatergoers at the time. In one production in the United States there were more than 16 complete sets that recreated the magic land of Illyria. This interpretation was based on American perceptions of aristocratic English country life. Again, the idea that the aristocracy had time to loll about and play love games figured prominently; songs and music were reinstated; and in one remarkable production, a set featuring a terraced garden with real grass and working fountains graced the stage.

The twentieth century has seen dramatic changes in performance interpretations of Twelfth Night. Although the play was infrequently staged until the 1930s, since then it has enjoyed almost constant production. In 1937 Tyrone Guthrie staged a production featuring Laurence Olivier as Sir Toby Belch, Alec Guinness as Andrew Aguecheek, and Jessica Tandy doubling as Viola and Sebastian. Using one actress to play the boy-girl look-alike twins was not well received on stage, but when Joan Plowright doubled as Viola and Sebastian in a television version in 1969, the effect worked quite well.

After World War II Laurence Olivier appeared in another production of the play, this time as Malvolio, with Richard Burton as Sir Toby Belch. Vivien Leigh played a Viola sporting a very 1950s interpretation of boy's clothes—tight trousers, a wasp-waist coat, and no attempt to conceal her bustline. In fact, at the end of the play she appeared for her curtain call in full evening dress, complete with tiara. This production pushed even further the idea that the audience was "playing" along with the actors; since "Cesario" was clearly a girl, why shouldn't she look like one?

Productions in the past 40 years have explored further the questions of gender and sexuality that Twelfth Night poses. In the 1960s and 1970s, society's experimentation with new ideas of sexual freedom opened up entirely new avenues of interpretation for the play's leading female characters, Viola and Olivia. Our evolving perception of gender and gender roles has also opened new understandings of the attraction between the characters.

While filmmakers have been adapting Shakespeare’s plays since the earliest days of cinema, Twelfth Night has only rarely been filmed. A few versions have been shot for British television—the 1969 production with Joan Plowright, directed by John Dexter, with Alec Guinness, Ralph Richardson; in 1988, directed by Kenneth Branagh; and in 1998, directed Nicholas Hytner. Tim Supple, who directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Indian and Sri Lankan actors that was presented at CST in November of 2008, filmed a cross-cultural, contemporary Twelfth Night in 2003.

The only mainstream film version of Twelfth Night is the 1996 Trevor Nunn film with Helena Bonham Carter as Olivia and Ben Kingsley as Feste. In She’s the Man, the play was updated, preserving the basic plot and characters but reset in a contemporary high school. Viola, played by Amanda Bynes, disguises herself as her brother, Sebastian, in order to play soccer at his school in this 2006 adaptation.

Theatrical adaptations include three musicals. Your Own Thing premiered off Broadway in 1968, and set the play in a rock club in New York City. Play On! from 1997 is a jukebox musical set in the Harlem Renaissance and featuring the music of Duke Ellington. All Shook Up, which played on Broadway in 2005, was also a jukebox musical, this one featuring the music of Elvis Presley.

Twelfth Night’s appearances on the Chicago Shakespeare Theater stage exemplify the play’s recent performance history. First performed at CST in 1996, the play was directed by British actor and director Michael Pennington in a production that balanced the comic with the pathos. In the twenty-first century, two companies have performed the play with all male casts. Shakespeare’s Globe visited with their Original Practices production that uses conventions from Shakespeare’s time, including hand-made clothing, live music and dance from the period. Artistic director Mark Rylance played Olivia in the production. Director Nick Ormerod and designer Declan Donnellan, joint founders of the British theater company Cheek by Jowl, teamed up with actors from the Pushkin Theatre of Moscow to create their stripped-down, contemporary, Russian-language version.

– Contributed by the CST Education Department