Twelfth Night teacher's guide - California Shakespeare Theater

TWELFTH NIGHT, OR WHAT YOU WILL:
The End of the Party
A note to teachers:
It’s 4am. You’ve been up all night, hanging out with your friends at a really great party.
But now, it’s getting late, you’re really tired, and so much has been happening with all
your friends that you can’t keep it all straight in your head. Did those people really get
together? Did those guys have a fight? Wasn’t it weird when that guy’s twin showed
up? Wow, it’s time to get some sleep.
The spirit of “anything goes” is the predominant one of Twelfth Night, coupled with the
sober knowledge that the celebration will soon end. The first half of the title suggests
the topsy-turvy world of the final day and night of the Christmas celebrations, which was
full of disguises, costumes, revelry, and even a randomly chosen Lord of Misrule who
presided over the festivities. The subtitle What You Will is one of a few unclear titles
Shakespeare gave his plays, much like As You Like It and Much Ado about Nothing.
But this second title carries the subtle hint that getting “what you will” may not turn out
the way you wished.
As in many of Shakespeare’s plays, the author presents us with a dual picture: a
great celebration of life and light (based around a birth) and the reality of death and
darkness. Each character is plunged into some kind of reversal: Viola is disguised as a
man, Orsino realizes his true love through Viola’s disguise, Olivia falls in love with Viola
in disguise, Malvolio believes he has achieved greatness only to be thrown in prison,
Sebastian faces a city of seemingly mad people who call him by his sister’s assumed
name. Even Feste, Olivia’s clown, seems to be off moonlighting at other jobs. Everything
has two sides to it.
Cal Shakes’ setting of this play into a modern context brings this idea firmly into today’s
views of celebrations, misunderstandings, and wishing: concepts with which your
students are very familiar.
“The first and most important lesson… is that there
are no rules about how to do Shakespeare, just clues.
Everything is negotiable.”
-Antony Sher and Greg Doran, Woza Shakespeare! 1996,
on training in the Royal Shakespeare Company
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