Day 8: Your Favorite Comedy
Jul. 29th, 2010 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_t_rainOK, this one was a really tough call. Even leaving Much Ado out of the running (since there are at least three other days when I will HAVE to post about Much Ado, and I don't want to say the same thing over and over), it's still a tough call. I was really tempted to post about The Merry Wives of Windsor, but it's so very different from the other comedies that it didn't seem quite right for this day. So, one in the classic Shxian-comedy mode:
Since Twelfth Night is The Norton Anthology Play, I usually have to revisit it at least once a year. Luckily, it's one of those plays that bears re-reading. One of the things I love about the comedies is the way Shakespeare is constantly playing with tone, sometimes audaciously, as if he's trying to figure out how far he can push the envelope and still have it count as a comedy. In Twelfth Night all of the elements are so poised, so perfectly in balance. There's an awful lot of darkness, from Orsino's love-melancholy, to Viola and Olivia's real grief, to Malvolio's bitter exit line. But it doesn't overwhelm the brighter moments, as it does in Merchant or Measure for Measure; joy is real in this world, and life is worth celebrating in all of its imperfections.
The bit that gets to me, every time, is the end of Act 2, with its succession of quick shifts in mood: Sir Toby and Sir Andrew come in, drinking hard and ready to make a night of it. Feste turns up to sing "O Mistress Mine," a song about the brevity of youth and love; it hangs in the air for a moment; amd then Sir Toby demands, "Shall we make the welkin dance indeed?" and we get some riotous singing and dancing, interrupted by Malvolio. Feste and Sir Toby draw him into an impromptu musical routine and make him look like a fool. He stomps out, with a parting shot at Maria, who promptly drafts the men into a wacky revenge plot. It grows very late, and Sir Andrew starts to grasp, dimly, that he's made a wreck of his life. Cut to Orsino and Viola the next morning, calling on Feste for another sad love song and talking at cross-purposes. He starts to lose his self-absorbtion, little by little, and coaxes her to confide in him. She offers him a riddle: "I am all the daughters of my father's house, / And all the brothers too; and yet I know not." He almost forgets about Olivia as he's trying to work it out, only he hasn't noticed yet that he's forgetting her. And then, cut to Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian crowding into the box-tree to spy on Malvolio.
It's a play of changeable taffeta; and yet all of those disparate bits fit together so well that you don't notice any disharmony -- the lyricism and melancholy heighten the silliness, and vice versa.
Day #1: Your favorite play
Day #2: Your favorite character
Day #3: Your favorite hero
Day #4: Your favorite heroine
Day #5: Your favorite villain
Day #6: Your favorite villainess
Day #7: Your favorite clown
Day #8: Your favorite comedy
Day #9: Your favorite tragedy
Day #10: Your favorite history
Day #11: Your least favorite play
Day #12: Your favorite scene
Day #13: Your favorite romantic scene
Day #14: Your favorite fight scene
Day #15: The first play you read
Day #16: Your first play you saw
Day #17: Your favorite speech
Day #18: Your favorite dialogue
Day #19: Your favorite movie version of a play
Day #20: Your favorite movie adaptation of a play
Day #21: An overrated play
Day #22: An underrated play
Day #23: A role you've never played but would love to play
Day #24: An actor or actress you would love to see in a particular role
Day #25: Sooner or later, everyone has to choose: Hal or Falstaff?
Day #26: Your favorite couple
Day #27: Your favorite couplet
Day #28: Your favorite joke
Day #29: Your favorite sonnet
Day #30: Your favorite single line
Since Twelfth Night is The Norton Anthology Play, I usually have to revisit it at least once a year. Luckily, it's one of those plays that bears re-reading. One of the things I love about the comedies is the way Shakespeare is constantly playing with tone, sometimes audaciously, as if he's trying to figure out how far he can push the envelope and still have it count as a comedy. In Twelfth Night all of the elements are so poised, so perfectly in balance. There's an awful lot of darkness, from Orsino's love-melancholy, to Viola and Olivia's real grief, to Malvolio's bitter exit line. But it doesn't overwhelm the brighter moments, as it does in Merchant or Measure for Measure; joy is real in this world, and life is worth celebrating in all of its imperfections.
The bit that gets to me, every time, is the end of Act 2, with its succession of quick shifts in mood: Sir Toby and Sir Andrew come in, drinking hard and ready to make a night of it. Feste turns up to sing "O Mistress Mine," a song about the brevity of youth and love; it hangs in the air for a moment; amd then Sir Toby demands, "Shall we make the welkin dance indeed?" and we get some riotous singing and dancing, interrupted by Malvolio. Feste and Sir Toby draw him into an impromptu musical routine and make him look like a fool. He stomps out, with a parting shot at Maria, who promptly drafts the men into a wacky revenge plot. It grows very late, and Sir Andrew starts to grasp, dimly, that he's made a wreck of his life. Cut to Orsino and Viola the next morning, calling on Feste for another sad love song and talking at cross-purposes. He starts to lose his self-absorbtion, little by little, and coaxes her to confide in him. She offers him a riddle: "I am all the daughters of my father's house, / And all the brothers too; and yet I know not." He almost forgets about Olivia as he's trying to work it out, only he hasn't noticed yet that he's forgetting her. And then, cut to Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian crowding into the box-tree to spy on Malvolio.
It's a play of changeable taffeta; and yet all of those disparate bits fit together so well that you don't notice any disharmony -- the lyricism and melancholy heighten the silliness, and vice versa.
Day #1: Your favorite play
Day #2: Your favorite character
Day #3: Your favorite hero
Day #4: Your favorite heroine
Day #5: Your favorite villain
Day #6: Your favorite villainess
Day #7: Your favorite clown
Day #8: Your favorite comedy
Day #9: Your favorite tragedy
Day #10: Your favorite history
Day #11: Your least favorite play
Day #12: Your favorite scene
Day #13: Your favorite romantic scene
Day #14: Your favorite fight scene
Day #15: The first play you read
Day #16: Your first play you saw
Day #17: Your favorite speech
Day #18: Your favorite dialogue
Day #19: Your favorite movie version of a play
Day #20: Your favorite movie adaptation of a play
Day #21: An overrated play
Day #22: An underrated play
Day #23: A role you've never played but would love to play
Day #24: An actor or actress you would love to see in a particular role
Day #25: Sooner or later, everyone has to choose: Hal or Falstaff?
Day #26: Your favorite couple
Day #27: Your favorite couplet
Day #28: Your favorite joke
Day #29: Your favorite sonnet
Day #30: Your favorite single line
