Fast forward to my year in NYC where I was fairly miserable most of the year, but the whole city lit up for me when I saw Ann Hathaway, Raul Esparza, and Audra McDonald in the 12th Night produced by Shakespeare in the park that year. I loved it so much I saw it twice and it might be my very FAVORITE memory from New York.
Fast Forward again to my first year of graduate school- I'm dealing with a stunning amount of snow on the ground as it is January in Virginia, I am newly in love with Dan, and I am about to experience my first ASC Renaissance Season show. Everything about that production of 12th night was magical for me: the charge and energy of the Ren Season chaos, the skill of the performers, it was my first time seeing Ben Curns on stage, Watching it with Dan, watching it with my brilliant classmates, watching Amy Bolis freak out every time they played Falling Slowly- actually, that point deserves some elaboration.
The 2010 Ren Season production started their production of 12th night with the actors playing Viola and Orsino (the incredible duo of Miriam and Greg... see picture at the end of this post) singing Falling Slowly from the movie Once. It was perfection. and Dan and I had such strong ties to the themes and the show and all the memories wrapped up in that time that we used it for the first dance at our wedding (photo credit Katherine Miles Jones):
1.1
This play begins with one of the most miscontextualized lines in the Shakespeare canon:
If music be the food of love, play on;
People use this line as a lovey dovey statement or to praise how great music is- but in context, Orsino is calling for music to GORGE himself on it so he never wants to love again. For this reason, this line will NOT appear in my theoretical etsy shop... Really this entire first scene is a strange one, one which I can't expound on half so well as my beloved scholar Stephen Booth (if anyone wants to get me a really nice gift sometime- I'd LOVE a copy of the book in the hyperlink which is almost impossible to get and therefore lots of money) Here's a snippet on googlebooks. highly recommended. The basic theme of the scene?:
so full of shapes is fancy That it alone is high fantastical
Valentin enters and we find a crux of the play. Orsino loves Olivia, but we find out that Olivia has declared:
The element itself, till seven years' heat,
Shall not behold her face at ample view;
But, like a cloistress, she will veiled walk
And water once a day her chamber round
With eye-offending brine: all this to season
A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh
And lasting in her sad remembrance.
OK... so Olivia and Hamlet may have gotten along. I will say that I think it's important that Olivia TRULY be in morning. Though it's still a bit over the top, if she is not truly mourning her brother she's kind of just a bitch and that's a far less interesting choice...
Orsino decides to leave after this and go where?
Away before me to sweet beds of flowers: Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers.
So Orsino and Olivia both have the means and disposition to indulge in their emotions... on to scene 2.
1.2
We begin this scene with Viola and the Sea Captain. We find that Viola thinks she is in much the same position of Olivia
And what should I do in Illyria?
My brother he is in Elysium.
Of course, Viola doesn't have the time to mourn, she must figure out what to do with her new position. So she tries to hold on to a little bit of hope that perhaps her brother survived and gets her bearing. The captain tells Viola of Orsino and Olivia. We find out that Olivia not only lost her brother but also her father recently. Viola's reaction:
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!
Oh Viola, how I understand that sentiment. You're talking to a girl who, after some considerable heartbreak TRIED TO BECOME A NUN. cloistered from the world seems much easier at times... but Olivia won't let anyone in to see her so Viola decides to dress like a man and try to serve Orsino instead.
1.3
Now we get to Sir Toby and Maria and Sir Andrew. Some of my very favorite characters. Sir Toby is your ultimate partier, would be besties with Falstaff I'm sure. And right off the bat, he has a phrase I WOULD put in my etsy shop:
I am sure care's an enemy to life.
The start of the scene basically consists of Maria trying to take care of/warn Sir Toby of the way his behavior is pissing off Olivia (his niece) Then we get to hear of and meet Sir Andrew, one of the most endearing clowns in all literature by my accounting.
SIR ANDREW
An you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw sword again. Fair lady, do you think you havefools in hand?
MARIA
Sir, I have not you by the hand. SIR ANDREW
Marry, but you shall have; and here's my hand.
How can you not instantly love this character?! Maybe it helps that everyone I've ever seen play the role has been both talented and adorable. Another Sir Andrew gem which I would put in my Etsy shop (good for either meat eaters OR vegetarians making fun of them):
I am a great eater of beef and I believe that does harm to my wit
Sir Toby and Sir Andrew have a fantastic exchange about dancing which is always a delight to stage and off they dance us into:
1.4
A short scene. Viola is in the service of Orsino. She has disguised herself as Cesario. In comes Orsino with some stunning poetry:
I have unclasp'd
To thee the book even of my secret soul:
Orsino wants Cesario to woo Olivia for him since Olivia is not relenting so far. There are lots of funny references to how womanly Orsino is and at the end of the scene we find out Viola's dilemma:
I'll do my best
To woo your lady: yet, a barful strife!
Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife.
1.5
In this scene we finally get to meet the much talked of Olivia. We also get to meet one of the most interesting/my favorite/most acerbic fools of Shakespeare. (My version refers to him as Clown, but I think Fool is much more accurate) We see the fool spar with Maria and see that Maria has a very good wit to keep up with him (and sir toby for that matter) The issue of marriage comes up:
MARIA
Yet you will be hanged for being so long absent; or, to be turned away, is not that as good as a hanging to you?
Clown
Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage; and, for turning away, let summer bear it out.
The fool calls out Maria on her desires point blank (such lovely truths from this cynical clown)
Clown
Apt, in good faith; very apt. Well, go thy way; if
Sir Toby would leave drinking, thou wert as witty a
piece of Eve's flesh as any in Illyria.
MARIA
Peace, you rogue, no more o' that. Here comes my lady:
Speaking of jesting with profound truths- he soon calls Olivia out on her excessive mourning:
Clown
Good madonna, why mournest thou?
OLIVIA
Good fool, for my brother's death. Clown
I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
OLIVIA
I know his soul is in heaven, fool. Clown
The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.
Keep an eye on the clown/fool. I think he's the smartest person in the play- perhaps matched by only viola or Maria depending on how they are played...
We also get to meet Malvolio in this scene. an icon of the play and a character I had the pleasure of watching my husband play last summer (pictures of that will show up here as well i'm sure). Malvolio immediately starts mocking most of the characters we've already started to like, and the scene is interrupted when Maria announces Viola's arrival. But first we get a delightfully drunk Sir Toby which leads to this exchange (put it on a bar towel!)
OLIVIA
What's a drunken man like, fool?
Clown
Like a drowned man, a fool and a mad man: one draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him.
Malvolio comes back to describe Viola with more awkward sexual confusion descriptions:
Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a squash is before 'tis a peascod, or a cooling when 'tis almost an apple: 'tis with him in standing water, between boy and man. He is very well-favoured and he speaks very shrewishly; one would think his mother's milk were scarce out of him.
Viola comes in and won't play Olivia's trickery games. This may be my FAVORITE scene for Viola's exquisite language. Starting with one of my favorite phrases: my profound heart
Before Viola can say much more Olivia shows her impatience and makes a joke about what time of the month it is for her but Viola insists on speaking with Olivia in private:
What I am, and what I
would, are as secret as maidenhead; to your ears,
divinity, to any other's, profanation.
Perfection. And it works. Olivia sends Maria away and even unveils her face. Viola uses the common trope of insisting that Olivia must have children:
Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive, If you will lead these graces to the grave And leave the world no copy.
Olivia is sassy but fair in this exchange and tells Viola plainly that she just can't love Orsino. And all might have ended there were it not for Viola's exquisite language in one of my very favorite speeches explaining what she would do for one she loves:
Make me a willow cabin at your gate, And call upon my soul within the house; Write loyal cantons of contemned love And sing them loud even in the dead of night; Halloo your name to the reverberate hills And make the babbling gossip of the air Cry out 'Olivia!' O, You should not rest Between the elements of air and earth, But you should pity me!
Shortly hereafter, Viola leaves and we get Olivia's fantastic soliloquy about being obsessed with "Cesario". It smacks of Benedick's love speeches: How now! Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
Her plan of action? Send a ring to Cesario via Malvolio and see if she can get this "pretty boy" to return to her company...
And that's Act I. I leave you with A gorgeous picture from the ASC 2010 Ren Season production:
No comments:
Post a Comment