TWELFTH NIGHT
B Y S Y LV I E D R A K E
A
Among his many achievements, William Shakespeare is also known for something slightly less laudable: the habit of stealing and adapting plots rather than inventing them. It was a shortcut, practiced also by fellow playwrights. Why bother to invent when so many were there for the taking? It saved time and you could improve on them. Or not. When it came to characters and imagery though, Shakespeare excelled. And, as with the other playwrights of his day, his refashioned plots indulged in elaborate deceit and vindication in all its forms while his subplots usually involved comic rubes and fools who dispensed malapropisms and sly wisdom by the mouthful. His best comedies are the fuel of great fun, propelled by lust, swept away by giddy humor, always dabbling in music while devolving into repeated antics that lead to happy endings. Consider A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It and Twelfth Night. Check out the variations on favorite themes: lovers in distress, disguises, mistaken identities, soldiers and sages, sisters and brothers, lofty peers and silly peons — and, in The Comedy of Errors, more than one set of twins. Twelfth Night has all of these elements and, if not identical twins, then a brother and sister separated by shipwreck and reunited when, thanks to the sister’s decision to disguise as a man, the two are mistaken for one another and revealed to be who they really are. Joy ensues because in Shakespeare’s comedies, joy always ensues.
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These are some of the reasons why Chris Coleman, the DCPA Theatre Company’s Artistic Director, not only chose to do Twelfth Night but also to direct it. “I knew I wanted Shakespeare to be part of this season,” he wrote in an informal exchange of emails. “Having the opportunity to continue exploring his work was one of the draws of this job. I also knew that our last outing was with Macbeth, so it made sense for it to be a comedy. Twelfth Night is among his very best writing in terms of fun of plot, richness of characters and delicious confusion of desire. “Everyone is falling for the ‘wrong’ person in this play. Some kind of desire gets awakened [that] is not aligned with the individuals’ sense of identity or history. The tension around that is very interesting, and very current. I also think there’s a great sense of music and mayhem in the piece that [is] fun to try and capture.” Music opens and ends the play, with plenty of room to add as much or as little of it as you wish, and mayhem influences all of the action in between. “There is both delightful humor and depth of feeling,” Coleman added. “It begins with heartache: Viola thinks her brother is drowned; Olivia grieves the loss of her father and brother; Orsino aches for Olivia’s love, which is scaldingly unreturned. The emotional layers feed the comedy, but also give it resonance.” Good point. The everpresent clowns in these comedies also have a serious function. They counteract the cloying
APPLAUSE • NOV 2019 – JAN 2020 • 303.893.4100 • DENVERCENTER.ORG
Illustration by Kyle Malone
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