Performing a Scene from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
At first I was unsure of this task, I was partly excited, as I love
performing but slightly hesitant as I find Shakespearean language
quite boring and extremely complicated.
There were five of us in a group so we searched the script for a scene
where there were enough characters. In the end we had two of our
members playing two parts. Another member from another group only had
a few lines so she was later let in our group and performed one of the
important characters. I have performed as both genders many times
before and I have always preferred playing female parts. So I really
fought to get my part as Olivia.
At first we chose the scene where Malvolio finds the hoax letter,
though after a few lessons, we all found it hard to get into our
characters. It was at this point we all agreed to find a different
scene. Eventually we all settled on Act III, scene 4. We decided we
wanted to begin at the point when Malovio enters and acts rather
flirtatious towards Olivia. However we wanted to end it as the joule
scene begins. This meant a very long scene.
My first thoughts on this scene were 'How are we going to learn our
lines' as Sir Toby, Viola, and especially Malvolio had an incredible
amount of lines. Though we soon solved this by agreeing to perform the
beginning, cut out the middle and explain it briefly to the audience
and then perform the ending. That way everyone was happy.
Our group got on well, at the beginning, though there were a few
moans, as people wanted to be certain characters. But in the end
everyone got to be who they wanted to be and everyone was happy.
Though on several of our rehearsals, another member of the group and I
got rather frustrated as other group members would not settle down and
rehearse and acted stupid. As the time went on and they carried on
like this we decided we could not nag them any more and decided we
Feste is a jester, clown or fool who moves between the homes of Olivia and Orsino. During the Renaissance, monarchs and some noble families had fools or clowns in their households as entertainers- to sing, make witty observations and play practical jokes. Shakespeare usually includes at least one clown in most of his comedies. This is how Feste earns his living, along with giving other characters shrewd advice. Despite being a professional fool, Feste often seems the most intelligent person in Twelfth Night. Feste seems to be a pivotal character in the play, and his presence makes the play much more than just a tale of romance.
Hamlet makes use of the idea of theatrical performance through characters presenting themselves falsely to others – from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern spying on Hamlet to gain favor with the King, to Hamlet himself playing the part of a madman – and through the play within the play, The Mousetrap. This essay will discuss the ways in which Hamlet explores the idea of theatrical performance, ‘acting’, through analysis of the characters and the ‘roles’ they adopt, specifically that of Hamlet and Claudius. The idea, or the theme of theatrical performance is not an uncommon literary element of Shakespearean works, the most famous of which to encompass this idea being As You Like It. This essay will also briefly explore the ways in which Hamlet reminds its audience of the stark difference between daily life and dramatization of life in the theatre.
Directing Act One Scene Two of A Midsummer's Nights Dream by William Shakespeare At the beginning of the scene Quince would enter to Snug, Flute, Snout and Starveling all seated round the upstage side of a large wooden table, which is situated on the apron of the stage, lively and drunkardly jostling with each other. I would choose to have Bottom standing in front of the table to represent his almost exaggerated feeling of superiority over the others and then seat himself at the centre of the table on the entrance of Quince. On the line beginning, "Ready. Name what part…" Bottom would stand and dramatically form a pose to suggest a, "lover" and then a, "tyrant" playing up to the other men who, apart from Quince, are absorbed by his act.
convinced the manager of a small nightclub in the city to let her sing a few songs with the house
In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and in Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid, two ladies are presented, that are not necessarily the leading protagonist, but they help unravel the plays’ plots into something amazing. Twelfth Night features Maria, the lady in waiting to Olivia. At first Maria comes off as a dilettante, later on we find out that’s not the case at all. Meanwhile, in The Imaginary Invalid, there is the disputatious Toinette, who is the maidservant and nurse to the imaginary invalid himself, Argan. Maria and Toinette are two strong women characters, their strength and wit is depicted through Maria and Toinette’s deceiving schemes to make their plays more stimulating as well as their objectivity throughout all the chaos in their respective play.
William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare's most famous comedies, involving complex plots, which result in hilarious outcomes. The main plot of Twelfth Night tells of Count Orsino's efforts to woo the Lady Olivia. who does not return his affection. Instead, Olivia is smitten with her. Orsino's servant Cesario, unaware of his true identity.
Orsino’s view of love is that he is in love with love itself and he
Not only a great singer, she taught herself how to play the guitar and the harp, and
There is much to find in the play to makes us smile with lots of songs
Feste, the fool character in Twelfth Night, in many ways represents a playwright figure, and embodies the reach and tools of the theater. He criticizes, manipulates and entertains the other characters while causing them to reflect on their life situations, which is similar to the way a playwright such as Shakespeare interacts with his audience. Furthermore, more so than the other characters in the play he accomplishes this in a highly performative way, involving song and clever wordplay that must be decoded, and is thus particularly reflective of the mechanisms at the command of the playwright. Feste is a representation of the medieval fool figure, who is empowered by his low status and able to speak the truth of the kingdom. A playwright speaks the truth by using actors and fictional characters, who are in a parallel low status in comparison to the audience, as they lack the dimensionality of real people. Thus, the role Feste plays in the lives of the characters in the play resembles the role the play itself plays in the lives of the audience watching the performance. This essay will explore this comparison first by analyzing similarities between the way in which Feste interacts with other characters and the way the playwright interact with the audience, and then focus on the similarities between the aims and content of these interactions.
Andrew is funny, it is not intentional. His faults include a lack of wit, a
Juliet is wearing a white silky bed gown in this scene due to the fact
After Olivia has her very first conversation with Cesario (Viola), where he tries to woo her for Duke Orsino, she immediately falls in love with him. After Cesario leaves her palace, Olivia says to herself ‘Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit do give thee fivefold blazon. Not too fast; soft, soft. Unless the master were the man. How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague?’ Here Olivia states that Cesario’s external features are what attract her to him. Her metaphor contains a s...
The perfect lives that make up the routine of the Illyrian citizens portrays a society in which enjoyment, and personal gain are held in utmost priority. Shakespeares mocks the passivity of the Illyrian lifestyle to explain to the audience that excess of such festivity has negative side effects such as ego and lack of true love. He expresses that the pursuit of expression and truth in itself invokes enjoyment. Sir Aguecheek mirrors the uncertainty of a person through lack of self-confidence and the desire to openly reveal his true self when lamenting “Is it a world to hide virtues in?” (1.3.131). While uncovering aesthetic and emotional mysteries, the Illyrians find that disport restrains them from actual enjoyment and love. The play follows the audience to motivate them towards dissemination of feelings and expression of passion as a “locus of growth and self discovery” (Logan 223) and to obtain true happiness by ridding themselves of excessive, meaningless fun.
Critics call Twelfth Night one of William Shakespeare’s most poetic and musical plays. Shakespeare writes poetic lines for the major characters, Viola, Orsino, and Olivia, and gives the Fool, and other minor characters, songs to sing throughout the play. The particularly romantic lines of the play make it seem as if the characters are professional poets themselves. Shakespeare also uses the music and poetry in Twelfth Night to foreshadow what is going to happen for the rest of the performance and to reveal major themes in the play. Music and poetry become major characters in the play themselves.