Twelfth Night is Shakespeare’s most crazy-ass comedy. A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest at least use the pretext of magic to explain their characters’ insane behavior. Not so in this cross-dressing comedy: The people of Illyria are just plain nutbags.
For example: A shipwrecked woman mourns her recently drowned twin brother for three quick lines, then promptly sets to scheming: She’ll pass as a man, make friends with a local duke, and help him woo a stubborn lady who doesn’t like him very much. (What? Why?) A drunk named Sir Toby Belch pursues two sadistic—potentially fatal—practical jokes, landing one man in an insane asylum and two others in a swordfight. By the end, the stubborn lady has fallen in love with the drag-king castaway, mistakenly marries the castaway’s twin brother (who shows up at the last minute for maximum zaniness), and doesn’t care when she figures out the mix-up. When the duke discovers his new BFF is a woman in disguise, he immediately forgets his love for the stubborn lady, which drove most of the play, and marries her instead (after getting a peek at her gams).
Twelfth Night is counter-titled Or What You Will—Shakespearean for “whatever.” “Whatever” is this play’s spirit animal. (The play also contains Shakespeare’s most explicit cunt joke, with “cut” a period equivalent to “gash.” A pompous servant, Malvolio, thinks he’s found a love letter from his employer, the stubborn lady. He parses her handwriting: “These be her very c‘s, her u‘s and her t‘s, and thus makes she her great p‘s.” Get it? Great peeing from her cut. Har har.)
Stephanie Shine’s production is appropriately frenetic, with live flamenco guitar pushing the action forward. Costume designer Melanie Taylor Burgess is mad about plaid, dressing the cast in bright Dickensian checkers, spats, and tall hats. Newcomer Susannah Millonzi has a loose-limbed grace as the castaway drag king Viola—everybody else, except the Greek fool Feste (Chris Ensweiler), maintains good and constrained upper-class posture, but Viola squats and sprawls and gestures broadly, trying to seem like a boy. The prim servant Malvolio (John Bogar) lives on the other end of the spectrum, uptight and stiff as a gull who thinks he’s a peacock. Darragh Kennan has a small but mighty role as the indignant, stuck-up drunk Sir Andrew Aguecheek, the stupid sidekick to the burly, Falstaffian bon vivant Sir Toby Belch (Ray Gonzalez).
The greatest virtue of this Twelfth Night is its clarity. Very few of the jokes, even the slangy or obscure ones, get rushed or sidelined. By the end, you might hope the deus will hurry up and ex machina (for such a senseless play, it’s overly concerned with tying up loose ends), but the majority of Twelfth Night is an energetic, entertaining distraction: a very pleasant “whatever.” 
Oh pooh. If the exposition isn’t butchered to shreds, Viola’s motivations are very clear.
She rightfully fears Sebastian is drowned; the captain offers some optimism. Viola: “Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope, / Whereto thy speech serves for authority, / The like of him. Know’st thou this country?”
As a native, he does, and she learns of the bachelor Duke. “Orsino! I have heard my father name him.” The captain introduces the Orsino/Olivia axis, complete with Olivia’s similar grieving plight. Viola: “…O that I served that lady, / And might not be delivered to the world, / Till I had made mine own occasion mellow, / What my estate is!” She doesn’t know what to do. She’s at a loss. At the very least, she needs food, shelter and protection. It is the captain who plants in her mind the seed of moving forward with life, with another casual mention of the Duke. And it is a testament to Viola’s strength and intelligence to seize the opportunity for what it is. Viola: “There is a fair behavior in thee, Captain; / And though that nature with a beauteous wall / Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee / I will believe thou hast a mind that suits / With this thy fair and outward character.” Period. Full stop. The seed sprouts: “I prithee, and I’ll pay thee bounteously, / Conceal me what I am, and be my aid / For such disguise as haply shall become / The form of my intent. I’ll serve this duke; …”
This is not insanity. There is no need of any magic. This is one smart, tough, survivor.
A gentlewoman washed up on foreign shores at that time could/probably would just have said: “Hey, I’m a gentlewoman in dire straits. And my twin just died. Can someone give me some clothes and food and get me home, or at least where I was headed?”
But Viola says “I’ll undertake a improbable, complicated cross-dressing masquerade” because… why exactly? She’s not a fugitive, though she behaves like one. It would make more sense for her to ask the captain (or the court) for food, shelter, and protection than to try and infiltrate the duke’s coterie. And if the court would offer FS&P to a strange young man, wouldn’t it be even more likely to offer the same to a castaway young lady?
I’m not complaining, mind you. The irrational first principles of Viola (and most everyone else in the play) make for good comedy. But nobody begins from an even slightly rational position—except Feste the clown, the backwards exception that proves the rule:
Every day is opposite day in Illyria.
One point: Beware the trap of applying 21st century critical sensibilities to a 16th century play. Bad performers and stupid directors make this error all-too-often. Viola is not just a “gentlewoman” but an unattended maiden–an undocumented one at that–in a man’s world on foreign soil. Even today, the likes of Beck, O’Reilly and Limbaugh would call her an illegal alien. A fugitive from the law. Shakespeare uses cross-dressing to address this danger. What else may hap to time I will commit; The captain agrees, Be you his eunuch, and your mute I’ll be;
Interestingly, Isaac Asimov(!) in his, Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare makes the compelling argument that far from being “irrational”,
“This is a stab at realism. A girl dressed in men’s clothing would, in real life, give herself away with her hairless cheeks, her shrill voice… these would fit a eunuch.” As Viola says, …for I can sing / And speak to him in many sorts of music, / That will allow me very worth his service.
Illyrians are fond of their music and musicians, after all. If music be the food of love…
And Johnson says the play offers “no just picture of life” but that “Viola seems to have formed a very deep design with very little premeditation: she is thrown by shipwreck on an unknown coast, hears that the prince is a bachelor, and resolves to supplant the lady whom he courts.” That “rational” interpretation of Viola’s behavior stretches credibility even more than Asimov’s.
She might be able to pass for a eunuch, but why would she? She’s already got male protection and sponsorship in the captain, if that’s what she wants. (And isn’t applying 21st century immigration law and attitudes to her situation the sin you’re trying to warn me off of?)
To my reading, they’re all a little off kilter. And we’re arguing about the sanest of the insane moments… the rest of the major plot points are even battier—though they make good comedy.
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree about this one. But nice crossing swords with you, Mr. Ballard.
Actually we don’t have to agree to disagree about anything. We’re discussing two different things. With due respect, Mr. Kiley, you’re talking about conclusions from the perspective of the play as a whole, from its culmination–not unlike the bad actor who enters a scene playing its conclusion, not its beginning. Seemingly miscellaneous, distinct, temporal events lead to an aggregate performance. An actor must create reason. Nora doesn’t start A Doll’s House with a ‘deep design’ to leave Torvald and abandon her children. She certainly does this and she may have a load of emotional baggage half-a-mile high, but the play begins with Christmas presents, and macaroons.
Think more like the Tralfamadorians in Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five: Life is a series of isolated moments of specificity creating patterns over time. This is how a good actor approaches a role and how an informed director guides a production. If you’re walking to The Stranger’s office to write a review and someone steps out from behind a building with a gun demanding your wallet, you don’t stop and a say, “Wait a minute. This isn’t supposed to happen. This is irrational. I’m supposed to walk to my job and meet my deadline.” No. You hand it over, or scream like a little girl, or run away, or suddenly assault your attacker. You respond to the specific action thrust upon you–sometimes in a fashion that surprises even you. This is Viola. She does not “hear[s] that the prince is bachelor, and resolve[s] to supplant the lady whom he courts.” In that one supposition you’ve compressed more than three day’s time in the play. Slow down. In a play, actors can only perform actions, found and grounded in the text, specific step by specific step by specific step. If this isn’t what you saw, then perhaps key lines were cut, or the production wasn’t up to speed.
In the most blasted of universes, the irrational worlds of Absurdism, actors portraying those two archetypes, Didi and Gogo, can only play specific actions. Even if it means waiting for someone(?) who never comes. Life is a tragedy; day-to-day existence a comedy.
Oops. I meant to write Dr. Johnson has compressed more than three day’s time… Sorry about that.
(I might also add that the Literary Giant never had to do the down and dirty work of staging one of Shakespeare’s plays. He approached them–and all plays–as literature. Which is rather like dry-humping: all chafing and no release…)
No, I’m starting with the bare facts of the beginning:
She’s washed ashore in a strange land. She needs help: food, shelter, clothing. She finds a captain who is helpful. She abandons that help to put on a disguise and try her luck with strangers—no telling whether they’d buy the disguise or how they’d react if they figured out they were being lied to.
She’s got a bird in the hand and runs into a thorn bush.
Not being an actor, I don’t have to rationalize bad and/or improbable writing to justify a character’s actions. Saying Viola’s irrational behavior is just “Viola surprising Viola” is good actor-psyche judo—a great thing for a director to tell an actor who needs some coaxing. But it’s still actor-psyche judo. The rest of us can recognize it for what it is: a quick means to situation comedy.
As a critic, you’ve got the bare facts wrong.
The helpful captain was aboard with Viola; she abandons no given counsel, in fact comes up with a high-risk, high-gain idea and–with the promise of payment–the Illyrian captain not only agrees to her plan, but promises to keep his mouth shut. End of scene.
A great set-up for situational comedy. Simple dramaturgy. No “actor-psyche judo” required. (Wonderful phrase, btw.)
No, you’re most certainly not an actor or director. Don’t let your dislike of the playwright cause you to miss or overlook what the rest of us who are can recognize for what it is: looking at a play through the fog of received opinion.
Right, she enters with the captain. My apologies. Other than that, I feel you edging my way: Viola surprises herself with her wild decision, Viola takes high risks, maybe risks disproportionate to the circumstances… (Again, to be clear I’m not complaining that she doesn’t make the most sensible decision—nobody comes to Twelfth Night for the kitchen sink. I’m just noticing that she, like most everybody else in the play, is a little crazy.)
And I don’t dislike the playwright. Whatever gave you that idea? I have publicly wished the NEA and others would turn more of their attention to the present, or even the recent past—but that’s not an indictment of the playwright.
Can I just say that I’m officially in love with you both? *blush*
Brendan, sometimes I agree with you and sometimes I don’t, but I love that you’re a critic willing to have a discussion. Thank you for that.
I’m with Lawrence on this one, though. Viola is faced with a few options for self-preservation, and serving Orsino in disguise is the only one that could really work. She can’t stay with the captain because he’s not trustworthy. Olivia is her first choice, but “she will admit no kind of suit.”
Viola’s decision to offer herself up as a eunuch to Orsino is silly and right in place in a Shakespearean comedy, sure. But from another perspective, it makes perfect sense. She needs food, shelter, and safety. Orsino is her only hope.
So I guess Laurence Ballard didn’t turn his back on Seattle completely when he stormed off to take up a teaching position or something back East a few years back?
Welcome back Mr. Ballard. It’s nice to have you back in the Seattle theater scene even virtually.