‘Twelfth Night’ Silly? , But It’s One Of The Best Plays Around
“A silly play,” was diarist Samuel Pepys’ verdict on “Twelfth Night” in 1663. That was probably not a compliment, coming as it did in an age of Puritanism. However, at the time the play was written, about 1599, people understood that silliness had its virtues. This Shakespeare comedy, which kicks off the Interplayers’ season tonight, loves nothing better than to give the raspberry to the Puritan ethics of seriousness and stolidity.
“Dost thou think,” asks Sir Toby Belch, in one of the play’s most quoted passages, “because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”
“Yes, by Saint Anne,” replies the clown. “And ginger shall be hot i’ the mouth, too.”
The Oxford Companion to American Theatre calls it “Shakespeare’s barbed attack on prudery and hypocrisy.”
The name “Twelfth Night” refers to the Feast of the Epiphany, a day of festivity and jolly celebration on Jan. 6. However, as Pepys also sourly notes, the play is “not at all related to the name or day.” In fact, the subtitle, “What You Will,” which probably translates into 1990s American usage as “whatever,” is probably a more fitting title.
The plot is a combination of two popular Renaissance comic themes: The confusion caused by identical twins, and the maiden who disguises herself as a boy to be near the man she loves. Around that plot is a great deal of jolly comic business, a lot of it coming from the drunken antics of Sir Toby Belch, and his dim-witted pal, Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Those two comic characters are constantly waging war on the snobby steward Malvolio.
It may be a jumble of plots and subplots, but it is widely considered one of Shakespeare’s best-constructed plays. It cleverly weaves its stories and themes into a whole.
The New York Times, ecstatic over a 1950 production starring Peggy Ashcroft, called it “the nearest thing to a perfect comedy yet composed in English.”
Besides comedy, it also has blasts of pure poetry, as in the opening lines of the play, “If music be the food of love, play on.”
This Interplayers production features R. Marquam Krantz as Orsino, Jim Ferris as Sebastian, Jeannette Simpson as Viola, Cheyenne Wilbur as Malvolio, Jonn Jorgenson as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Erin Merritt as Olivia, Leslie Krantz as Maria, Gary Pierce as Feste, William Westenberg as Antonio and William Marlowe as Sir Toby Belch.
The director is the Interplayers associate director Michael Weaver, who took over early in the project for co-founder Bob Welch, who is recovering from a heart attack.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: “TWELFTH NIGHT” Location and time: Interplayers Ensemble, 174 S. Howard, opens tonight at 8. Continues Tuesdays through Saturdays through Nov. 11. Curtain is at 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with 2 p.m. matinees on Saturday and on Oct. 25 and 28. Tickets: Call 455-PLAY (455-7529).