Dialogue And Film Distice In Trevor Nunn's Twelfth Night

Shakespeare 's Twelfth Night is a critical Elizabethan-era work that explores attraction and sexuality within the relationship between Viola (as Cesario) and Duke Orsino. Her role is one of steadfast love towards Orsino; she willingly courts Olivia on his behalf as Cesario, burying her feelings for him because she cares that he is happy. There is a rigid dichotomy between Viola and Orsino’s passion; where Viola is steady, Orsino is inconsistent. Feste states directly to Orsino that his “mind is a very opal” (2.4.71) which implies he is constantly changing what he wants and is more in love with the idea of love rather than Olivia. Duke Orsino’s evolution from a typical Petrarchan lover to passionate love, through trials of gender confusion

General confusion arises due to the deceptive actions of several characters in the play. A notable act of deception in the play is seen when Maria and Sir Toby play a trick on the head servant, Malvolio. They are successful in misleading him to act strangely, which convinces everyone that he has gone mad. In the hopes of wooing his master Olivia, Malvolio starts behaving strangely. He begins to wear yellow stockings and smiles excessively; behaviours that are all uncharacteristic of his usual prude and stern self.

This week in class, we presented our revised challenge statements. I was extremely glad to have someone critique my revised challenge statement, as I was unsure about the changes I had made.

Later, Malvolio confronts Olivia and she thinks he is insane. Malvolio gets put in a cage and becomes isolated for his behavior.

In the Twelfth Night film directed by Trevor Nunn, there are differences between the sequencing of the scenes, lines of characters, and character stage directions/movements compared to the original text. Directors use film adaptations to enhance the writer’s intended meaning hidden in the original text, however, Trevor Nunn altered the meaning of a Shakespearean comedy. Shakespearean comedies are characterized as entertaining plays centered around a person of power, who delivers a statement of harsh judgment and must make amends, and the comedies usually end in marriage. In Twelfth Night, Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, passes harsh judgment towards Lady Olivia by telling his servant, Cesario, to “be clamorous and leap all civil bounds/

love when actually they just loved the idea of it. One such a man is

Laughter is the medicine of life. Regardless of any bad day, laughter can lighten a mood consid-erably. There are different types of humor expressed in literary works; some humor is crude, some is dry, and some is lighthearted. George Meredith mentions a “thoughtful” laughter or humor. Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night are both satirical literary works that stir up “thoughtful” laughter in the audience or readers of the plays.

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare is a romantic comedy, and romantic love is the play’s main focus. The play starts by following Viola, a girl who has been shipwrecked. Viola and the many other characters face many obstacles due to who they love. Despite the fact that the play offers a happy ending, in which the various characters find one another and achieve wedded bliss, Shakespeare shows that love can cause pain. Throughout the play, many of the characters seem to view love as a kind of curse, a feeling that attacks its victims suddenly and disruptively. In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare shows that the theme is that strong and abrupt emotions, like love and hate, can be the cause of suffering.

Identity is a key factor in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Identities are falsified, mistaken, and swapped by many central characters in the play. As Williams notes, “disguises may be merely physical as with Viola dressed as a page or Feste dressed as Sir Topas, or they may be psychological, as with Orsino and Olivia who have deceived themselves into believing that they have been overwhelmed with love or with grief” (193). The fluidity of identity allows characters to grow and change as the play progresses. Identity also causes characters to gain or lose power, as well as opportunities.

The reason for Olivia’s confusion is Malvolio is usually an arrogant and impulsive character who never displays any signs of liveliness, seeing him portray light-hearted behaviour is unusual to the other characters. Malvolio’s unusual behaviour in this scene adds to the topsi turviness of the play. This scene shows the prank unfolding and Malvolio’s naivety. Here he can either be seen as a legitimate comic target which the audience dislike because of his attempt to become a part of the upper class; or he can be seen as a victim which the audience sympathise with because he has become the victim of a cruel prank which he has no idea about. Nevertheless, in this scene he is portrayed as a comic target as he thinks that he can marry someone who is above him in the

Malvolio is the steward of Olivia’s house and lives to serve her. When he plans to tell Olivia of her housemaid Maria’s partaking in the ruckus of with the other character, Maria tricks Malvolio into thinking that she secretly wants to marry him by writing him a note. After being tricked by Olivia’s housemaid, Malvolio slowly starts to cause concern when Olivia sees a change in his normal demeanor. Shocked by his new found affection she is persuaded to believe that he has gone mad. Malvolio too believes he has lost his sanity when he is told by the fool who is dressed as a preist that he is crazy.

In his famous comedy, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare took a conventional comedic concept and constructed a fool character that inserts an intricacy and resonance to his work. This fool is completely placed distant from society and moreover disregards or is unable to reflect the model of society in which he finds himself. The fool is identified as the inferior in society, where he stands lower in the class system. Olivia states this notion by saying “There is no slander in an allowed fool though he do nothing but rail” (I.v. 83-84). The fool in Twelfth Night, Feste, whose insider-outsider position as a professional fool, supports him to obtain steadiness among the surrounding contradictions in a way that is unlike any other character in this play. He stuns and puzzles; persuades conjecture; and he works as a mediator between the play and audience. As stated by Walter Kaiser, it is when Feste mocks the characters’ flaws and turns to his wits to “create laughter, to teach us the truth, and to embody paradoxes.” By walking on this fine line, Feste reveals the foolishness and truths of the other characters.

After attending Texas Theatre and Dance’s full play production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, I am decently surprised to realize that the ‘Romantic Comedy’ genre can be timeless when done properly. This play, written in year 1601, still manages to translate the hardships of infatuation, loss, and gender identity surprisingly well to a modern audience. In this production, the tragedies of the main characters turn into an awkward love triangle in which no one is who they seem. Although the play Twelfth Night appears to be all about love and the characters endeavors to gain each other’s affection, it is clear that none of the characters are truly in love.

Malvolio, head steward of Olivia’s household is an arrogant and proud man, who evokes distaste but also pity from the audience. Maria and company craft a masterful trap into which Malvolio walks right into; they trick him into believing that the lady Olivia loves him and wishes him to prove his love for her through a series of actions. Not only does he not doubt this for a second, but he eagerly agrees to fulfill all of the embarrassing things he has been set up to do: “I do not now fool/ myself, to let my imagination jade me; for every reason/ excites to this, that my lady loves me” [5.2.153-155]. Malvolio’s declaration confirms that he is completely blinded by the thought of him being a count and imagining himself bossing servants around and being showered with wealth that he

William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” or “What You Will” was written around 1601-1602 with the primary performance being in February 1602. It is known to be a high point of Shakespearian comedy as it is one of Shakespeare’s finest works. Twelfth night was written to commemorate the close of the Christmas season being possibly one of the first ever holiday specials, kind of like the Middle Ages version of “Love Actually”. The play centres on the twins Viola and Sebastian, who are separated during a shipwreck. Viola falls infatuated with Duke Orsino, who in turn is enamoured with the Lady Olivia. Upon meeting Viola, Lady Olivia falls in love with viola thinking she is a man. Shakespeare explores and illustrates the feeling of affection