book review of twelfth night

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BOOK REVIEW: Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

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The story of “Twelfth Night” (a.k.a. “What You Will”) revolves around several men in the city of Illyria vying for the hand of Olivia, a woman both lovely and wealthy. The problem is Olivia is in the dumps, having lost both her father and her brother (which explains how she ends up head of such prestigious household, given the times.) The only thing that brings her out of her sullen state is her affection for a new arrival to the city named Cesario. The problem is that Cesario is not interested because he is secretly a she – the cross-dressing Viola. This tale might have been counted among the tragedies were it not for the fact that Viola’s brother Sebastian shows up on the scene. Since Sebastion is the spitting image of the cross-dressed Viola (i.e. Cesario) and bears other common traits of sibling experience, Olivia transfers her affections without even realizing it. [Viola and Sebastian had both been laboring under the impression that the other is dead.]

In “Twelfth Night” one sees the plot device of mistaken identity from “Comedy of Errors” replayed in a way that is a bit less believable, though in a sense riper with comedic potential. I say this because while it might be possible to imagine two siblings being confused even (if they are of different gender), when the confusion begins (upon Sebastian’s arrival) we find that he is anything but the boyish character we expected given Cesario, granted the difference between the clever but wimpy Viola and the brave and cocksure Sebastion makes for levity. Notably when Sebastian lays out Sir Andrew Aguecheek with the utmost ease. Granted Aguecheek is a Don Qixote-esque character, though perhaps with incompetence owing more to alcoholism than an addled mind (though his mind may be addled as well as pickled.) Of course, there is the love-triangle plot device common in Shakespearean comedies, though “triangle” seems an inadequate geometry.

I’m a bit fonder of “Comedy of Errors” than “Twelfth Night.” I think more is done with the identity confusion in that one, as well as it having some great lines (many delivered by the Dromios.) That said, “Twelfth Night” has its funny moments, particularly involving the two plotting drunks, Sir Toby Belch (kinsman to Olivia) and Sir Andrew Aguecheek (the aforementioned Quixote-esque knight.)

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A Summary and Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Of all Shakespeare’s comedies, Twelfth Night is perhaps the most perfect: the most technically and structurally accomplished, the most unified in terms of its wordplay and themes and characters, and the most profound. Beneath all of the cross-dressing and mistaken identities, Twelfth Night probes some deep truths about the nature of love.

When Olivia falls in love with Viola at first sight, when Viola is disguised as Cesario, whom does she fall in love with, exactly? And when she marries Sebastian, Viola’s twin brother, in the mistaken belief that Sebastian is actually Cesario, does this suggest that her love is only skin deep? This is why Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare’s most continually popular comedies.

It invites us to ask such questions about the nature of love and deception: questions which resist easy answers or analysis. Nevertheless, let’s try to analyse some of Twelfth Night ’s most salient themes and features.

Plot summary of  Twelfth Night

The play opens with the Duke of Illyria, Orsino, pining away with love for Olivia, a countess whose father died a year ago and whose brother has recently died. Olivia has vowed to shut herself away from society for seven years as a result of these deaths. Meanwhile, a lady named Viola is shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria, and fears her twin brother, Sebastian, with whom she was travelling, may have died during the wreck. Viola, keen to establish herself in this new place, decides that she will serve Orsino, disguising herself as a male youth named Cesario.

Olivia’s uncle, a drunken aristocrat named Sir Toby Belch, is chastised by Olivia’s gentlewoman and chambermaid, Maria, for coming home late, drunk. Sir Toby’s friend, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, arrives; Sir Toby is trying to put in a good word for his friend, who is trying to woo Olivia (unsuccessfully). Sir Andrew, convinced Olivia will never agree to see him, is intent on giving up the chase, but Sir Toby persuades him to stay a little longer, convincing him that he has a chance with the countess.

Viola has only been serving Orsino for three days, but – disguised as a boy, Cesario – she has already made an impression on the Duke. Orsino tasks Viola-Cesario with securing an audience with Olivia and telling Olivia about the Duke’s affection for her. Meanwhile, Maria chides Feste, Olivia’s Fool, for being late.

Feste tries to cheer up Olivia, much to the disapproval of Malvolio, Olivia’s humourless steward. Viola (as Cesario) arrives at the gate, and Olivia grants ‘him’ an audience after Viola-Cesario refuses to go away until she sees ‘him’. Olivia is smitten with ‘Cesario’, but tells ‘him’ that she cannot return Orsino’s affection. However, she tells Cesario that ‘he’ may call upon her again.

When Cesario leaves, Olivia takes a ring from her finger and gives it to Malvolio, claiming that Cesario left it behind by accident, and that Malvolio should go after the youth and give it back.

Meanwhile, Viola’s twin brother, Sebastian, has also survived their shipwreck, but like Viola he believes his sibling has been drowned at sea. And, like Viola, he decides to head for Orsino’s court. Antonio, who has enemies at Orsino’s court, nevertheless resolves to follow his master there.

Malvolio catches up with Cesario, and presents the ring to ‘him’, which Cesario denies having dropped at Olivia’s. When Malvolio has gone, Viola wonders why Olivia sent Malvolio after her with the ring. She realises that Olivia loves her as Cesario. Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Feste drunkenly sing at Olivia’s, rousing both Maria and Malvolio, who tells Sir Toby that Olivia is getting tired of his behaviour and would be glad to see him gone from her house.

When Malvolio has gone, Maria tells Sir Toby and Sir Andrew how she dislikes Malvolio’s vanity and self-regard, and that she plans to bring him down a peg or two. She hatches a plot to leave love letters in Malvolio’s chamber, written in what looks to be Olivia’s handwriting (but is really Maria’s).

As Orsino and Cesario listen to music, it becomes obvious that Cesario – i.e. Viola – loves Orsino. Orsino sends Cesario to Olivia again, with a jewel for a gift. Meanwhile, Maria’s plan to make a fool of Malvolio begins to come to fruition: Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian (another member of Olivia’s household) conceal themselves in a box-tree while Malvolio prances about, talking to himself, convinced that Olivia loves him.

Malvolio imagines what it would be like to be married to Olivia and thus be able to lord it over her uncle, Sir Toby Belch; from their concealment in the tree, Sir Toby and his friends take exception to Malvolio’s arrogance. Malvolio then discovers a letter, forged by Maria, but purporting to be in Olivia’s handwriting; the letter makes Malvolio think that Olivia wants him to be cross-gartered and wear yellow stockings, so he resolves to get kitted out in such clothes to impress her.

The letter also suggests that Malvolio smile in Olivia’s presence, so that she might discreetly know he returns her affections. When Malvolio is gone, Sir Toby and the others laugh at Malvolio’s gullibility.

Viola, as Cesario, has another audience with Olivia, during which Olivia confesses her love for ‘him’. Cesario rebuffs her, and leaves. Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who walked in on them, complains to Sir Toby and Fabian that Olivia, who spurns his advances, was bestowing her affection upon a mere servant.

Sir Toby and Fabian persuade Sir Andrew to write a letter challenging Cesario to a duel: they say that Olivia is bound to be impressed by his valour. When he’s gone, Maria arrives to tell Sir Toby and Fabian that Malvolio has acted upon the advice in the forged letter, and is cross-gartered and wearing yellow stockings.

Olivia speaks with Malvolio, and is shocked by his attire and his perpetual smiling. She leaves to welcome Cesario back, and Sir Toby, Maria, and Fabian confront Malvolio, pretending to think him mad. Malvolio leaves, and Sir Andrew appears with his letter of challenge drafted for Cesario, challenging ‘him’ to a duel over Olivia.

Once Sir Andrew has left to await Cesario, Sir Toby reveals that he will not deliver the letter to Cesario, but instead goes and tells ‘him’ about Sir Andrew’s challenge in person. Cesario retreats into the house, but Sir Andrew pursues him. They go to duel, but just as they are drawing their swords, Antonio shows up, thinking he’s found Sebastian – because ‘Cesario’ looks exactly the same! Antonio is arrested for piracy, leaving Viola hoping that her brother really is alive.

Olivia, mistaking Sebastian for Cesario, is overjoyed when Sebastian agrees to marry her. Meanwhile, Feste, disguised as Sir Topas the curate, visits Malvolio where he has been incarcerated because of his strange behaviour, with everyone thinking he’s gone mad. Olivia and Sebastian marry, with Olivia still thinking she is marrying Cesario.

Orsino confronts Antonio for his crimes, and when Olivia arrives and rejects Orsino’s advances again, he denounces her. Olivia, believing she is speaking to her newlywed husband Sebastian, is amazed when Viola (as Cesario) professes her love for Orsino.

Olivia demands Cesario remains behind when ‘he’ goes to follow Orsino, and calls upon the priest who married her to Sebastian to confirm that they are married. Orsino believes that Cesario has betrayed him and married the woman he loves, and flies into a rage again. Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, having been beaten up by Sebastian, turn up and accuse Cesario of having done it.

Thankfully, Sebastian then arrives and when everyone sees him and Cesario/Viola in the same place, the confusion is cleared up. Malvolio is brought out of his cell, and confronts Olivia about the letter he thinks she wrote to him, professing her love and asking him to dress cross-gartered in yellow stockings. Olivia, seeing the letter, recognises it is Maria’s handwriting, made to look like her own. Malvolio, realising he’s been duped and that his mistress does not love him, storms off, announcing he will have his revenge on them all.

With Viola’s true identity now revealed, she and Orsino agree to be married. Twelfth Night ends with Feste singing a song, ‘ When that I was and a little tiny boy ’.

Analysis: the background to Twelfth Night

Samuel Pepys went to see Twelfth Night three times – despite thinking it ‘a silly play’. In January 1663, he saw the play performed, and thought it was ‘acted well, though it be but a silly play, and not related at all to the name or day’. This is true enough: despite featuring a Fool named Feste and being named after the festival of Twelfth Night, Shakespeare’s play does not make much of this day in the calendar beyond the carnivalesque feel to the comedy, whereby roles are reversed and swapped, and the world is comically turned on its head (Malvolio being tricked into making a fool of himself, for instance).

The first recorded performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night was on Candlemas, 1602. Candlemas is 2 February – better-known in the United States as Groundhog Day – and was the date on which Christmas decorations were often traditionally taken down in Shakespeare’s time – unlike these days, when it’s traditional to take them down by, oddly enough, Twelfth Night or 5 January, the eve of Epiphany.

Perhaps that provides a clue to how we should analyse Twelfth Night : it was first performed (as far as we know) at the end of the (the far longer) Christmas season, and is named for the end of the shorter ‘Twelve Days’ of Christian feasting. Twelfth Night is ultimately about having to relinquish such carnivalesque japing and return to a world stripped of illusion and topsy-turviness.

Shakespeare’s classic comedy of cross-dressing, separated siblings, love, puritanism, and yellow stockings was, then, quite possibly first performed in February 1602, though it’s possible there was an earlier (unrecorded) performance, perhaps a year earlier. (Some critics believe the play was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I for Twelfth Night 1601, when an Italian nobleman, Don Virginio Orsino, Duke of Bracciano, was a guest at court. However, it’s more likely that Shakespeare simply borrowed the name from the real Duke, rather than that he wrote the part specially for the Duke’s visit.)

Themes of Twelfth Night

Disguise plays a vital role in this play, and Viola’s disguising of herself as Cesario is only the most prominent example. In a sense, the forged letter to Malvolio, proclaiming itself to be from Olivia herself, is a form of ‘disguise’, while Malvolio’s comical dressing-up, cross-gartered and in yellow stockings, is what we might call an inadvertent disguise, since he believes he is turning himself into the man his mistress will fancy.

Twelfth Night is a play where people are often not what they seem: Viola is not really a boy, Sebastian is not Cesario though is mistaken for ‘him’, Olivia does not really fancy Malvolio, the letter purporting to be from Olivia was actually her chambermaid Maria doing an impersonation of her mistress’ handwriting, and so on. As Viola (disguised as Cesario) tells Olivia at a couple of points, ‘I am not that I play’ (I.5) and ‘I am not what I am’ (III.1).

The relationship between love and disguise – and, by extension, love and illusion – is a key one for the play, as Viola herself acknowledges in II.2:

Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness, Wherein the pregnant enemy does much. How easy is it for the proper-false In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms!

Many of Shakespeare’s comedies use actual masks and disguises to hint at something which actually runs far deeper, especially in the field of romantic love: the capacity to fall in love with a shadow, for looks to be deceiving, and for lovers to get the wrong end of the stick (so, for instance, in Much Ado about Nothing Claudio is tricked into thinking he’s ‘seen’ his betrothed, Hero, being unfaithful). Olivia falls in love with a ‘youth’ who doesn’t really exist.

The fact that Sebastian looks identical to Viola-Cesario is surely of only superficial significance: they are, nevertheless, different people. Perhaps the truest love, viewed this way, in the whole of Twelfth Night is the steadfast loyalty shown by Antonio to his master, young Sebastian: he follows him to Orsino’s court out of devotion, and the youth he serves is who he says he is.

By contrast, Malvolio’s designs on Olivia stem from his own self-regard, and a desire to lord it over Sir Toby Belch and chastise him for his drunkenness, rather than from any deep love for Olivia herself. It’s her title and status he covets, not her personality.

In this respect, in being tricked into putting on a false ‘costume’ – those yellow stockings – Maria succeeds in revealing the real Malvolio, in all his self-important ugliness, rather than concealing him behind a disguise. But the case of Malvolio obviously stands apart from the other disguises and dressing-up in Twelfth Night , most notably Viola’s adoption of the ‘Cesario’ persona.

Twelfth Night is a play about doubles, and not just because it has a set of identical twins, Viola and Sebastian, at its centre. Olivia is in double mourning (she’s lost both her father and brother), she has two aristocratic suitors (Duke Orsino and the hapless Sir Andrew Aguecheek), Sebastian has two admirers (Olivia, thinking him Cesario; and Antonio, who is suffering from no such delusion), Viola plays two parts, and so on.

Even the role of music finds itself doubled in the two plots, with Orsino finding that music echoes the deep pangs of love he feels for Olivia, while the songs that Feste, Sir Toby Belch, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek sing also reflect love, albeit in a different register. The two meet in Feste, who sings for both Sir Toby and Sir Andrew (‘O mistress mine’) and Orsino (‘Come away, come away, death’).

This shows just how structurally well worked-out this is: perhaps of all of Shakespeare’s comedies it is the most cleverly assembled, in that ‘doubling’ goes beyond simple dressing-up and the adopting of a handy disguise. Like the theme of disguise itself, doubling is ingrained within the fabric of the play at many levels.

In the last analysis, Twelfth Night endures as one of Shakespeare’s most structurally effective comedies, but its japes involving cross-dressing and mistaken identity aren’t merely there for comic effect, as they tend to be in his earlier ‘double’ play, The Comedy of Errors . Shakespeare is making some profound observations about love and deception, especially self-deception. Malvolio is deluded into thinking he can become a great man. Olivia is deceived by Viola’s disguise. There is a vein of potential tragedy in all this, even while the play is celebratory and comic.

Some final trivia about Twelfth Night

The play has been turned into a musical on numerous occasions. These include Your Own Thing (1968), Music Is (1977), the Elvis Presley jukebox musical All Shook Up (2005), and the Duke Ellington jukebox musical Play On! (1997). The first film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night was as early as 1910. This predated the advent of talking pictures by nearly two decades, and was only a short film. You can watch the film here .

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1 thought on “A Summary and Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night”

I always thought that the sub-plot of 12th Night, involving the very cruel treatment of Malvolio was too strong for a romantic comedy. However I did see a production in which Malvolio greets the revelation of the plot against him with a genuine burst of laughter and his line ‘I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you” was softened from something that sounded much more like a promise to get his own back – possibly with another joke than a threat.

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Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (Review)

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

About the author

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an English poet, playwright and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in English history. He wrote 39 plays, 154 sonnets and other verses.

The play centres on the twins Viola and Sebastian , who are separated in a shipwreck. Viola (who is disguised as Cesario) falls in love with Duke Orsino, who in turn is in love with Countess Olivia. Upon meeting Viola, Countess Olivia falls in love with her thinking she is a man.

This is another book off my Summer Goodreads Reading Challenge and the prompt for this one was to read a format of book you do not usually read so I chose a play because I have not read a play since school. I must admit I really enjoyed it and plan on reading more plays in the future.

I saw this play a few years ago live at a National Trust property outside and laughed a lot I have fond memories of yellow cross gartered stockings. I loved reading this play and it reminded me a great deal of the play when I saw it years ago. Shakespeare is a true comic genius and the use of this genius is evident in this play.

The storyline of the twins is brilliantly executed although I do think the ending is rather rushed but that might just be me wanting the play to last longer. I loved the character of Viola, trying to survive in a man’s world and at the same time falling in love with a man who she cannot go near without blowing her disguise. Sebastian’s part is small in comparison to Viola’s but still vital to the story.

I thoroughly enjoyed this play and it only took me a few hours to read. I gave this book a full 5 out of 5 Dragons.

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Twelfth Night

William Shakespeare, Dr. Barbara A. Mowat, Paul Werstine Ph.D. | 4.14 | 161,638 ratings and reviews

Ranked #9 in Shakespeare , Ranked #15 in Renaissance — see more rankings .

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Twelfth Night is ranked in the following categories:

• #97 in Comedy
• #20 in Drama
• #15 in Theater
• #71 in Twins
• #43 in University

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Home › Drama Criticism › Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 26, 2020 • ( 0 )

Twelfth Night is the climax of Shakespeare’s early achievement in comedy. The effects and values of the earlier comedies are here subtly embodied in the most complex structure which Shakespeare had yet created. But the play also looks forward: the pressure to dis-solve the comedy, to realize and finally abandon the burden of laughter, is an intrinsic part of its “perfection.” Viola’s clear-eyed and affirmative vision of her own and the world’s rationality is a triumph and we desire it; yet we realize its vulnerability, and we come to realize that virtue in disguise is only totally triumphant when evil is not in disguise—is not truly present at all. Having solved magnificently the problems of this particular form of comedy, Shakespeare was evidently not tempted to repeat his triumph. After Twelfth Night the so-called comedies required for their happy resolutions more radical characters and devices—omniscient and omnipresent Dukes, magic, and resurrection. More obvious miracles are needed for comedy to exist in a world in which evil also exists, not merely incipiently but with power.

—Joseph H. Summers, “The Masks of Twelfth Night”

William Shakespeare was in his mid-30s and at the height of his dramatic powers when he wrote Twelfth Night , his culminating masterpiece of romantic comedy. There is perhaps no more rousing, amusing, or lyrical celebration of the transforming wonderment of love nor a more knowing depiction of its follies or the forces allied against it. Twelfth Night is the ninth in a series of comedies Shakespeare wrote during the 1590s that includes The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, and As You Like It and is a masterful synthesis of them all, unsurpassed in the artistry of its execution. In recognizing the barriers to love it also anticipates some of the preoccupations of the three dark comedies that followed— Troilus and Cressida , All’s Well That Ends Well, and Measure for Measure —the great tragedies that would dominate the next decade of Shakespeare’s work, as well as the tragicomic romances—Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest—that conclude Shakespeare’s dramatic career. Given the arc of that career, Twelfth Night stands at the summit of his comic vision, the last and greatest of Shakespeare’s pure romantic comedies, but with the clouds that would darken the subsequent plays already gathering. Shakespeare never again returned to the exultant, triumphant tone of sunny celebration that suffuses the play. Yet what makes Twelfth Night so satisfying and impressive, as well as entertaining, is its clear-eyed acknowledgment of the challenge to its merriment in the counterforces of grief, melancholy, and sterile self-enclosure that stand in the way of the play’s joyous affirmation. The comedy of Twelfth Night is earned by demonstrating all that must be surmounted for desire to reach fulfillment.

Twelfth Night , or What You Will was written between 1600 and 1602. The earliest reference to a performance appears in the diary of barrister John Manningham who in February 1602 recorded that the play was acted in the Middle Temple “at our feast.” He found it “much like the Commedy of Errores or Menechmi in Plautus, but most like an neere to that in Italian called Inganni. ” Manningham provides a useful summary of Shakespeare’s sources and plot devices in which a story of identical twins and mistaken identities is derived both from his earlier comedy and its ancient Roman inspiration, Plautus’s The Twin Menaechmi. This is joined with an intrigue plot of gender disguise borrowed from popular 16th-century Italian comedies, particularly Gl’Ingannati ( The Deceived Ones ), in which a disguised young woman serves as a page to the man she loves. Shakespeare also employs elements of the new comedy of humours, popularized by Ben Jonson’s Every Man in His Humour in 1598, for his own invention of the duping of the choleric Malvolio. Mistaken identities, comic misadventures in love, and the overthrow of repression, pretense, and selfishness are all united under the festive tone of the play’s title, which suggests the exuberant saturnalian celebration of the twelfth day after Christ-mas, the Feast of the Epiphany. For the Elizabethans, Twelfth Night  was the culminating holiday of the traditional Christmas revels in which gifts were exchanged, rigid proprieties suspended, and good fellowship affirmed. Scholars have speculated that Twelfth Night may have been first acted at court on January 6, 1601, as part of the entertainment provided for a Tuscan duke, Don Virginio Orsino, Queen Elizabeth’s guest of honor. Whether it was actually performed on Twelfth Night , the play is, like A Midsummer Night’s Dream , a “festive comedy,” in C. L. Barber’s phrase, that captures the spirit of a holiday in which social rules and conventions are subverted for a liberating spell of topsy-turviness and revelry.

As in all of Shakespeare’s comedies, Twelfth Night  treats the obstacles faced by lovers in fulfilling their desires. In an influential essay, “The Two Worlds of Shakespearean Comedy,” Sherman Hawkins has detected two basic structural patterns in Shakespeare’s comedies. One is marked by escape, in which young lovers, facing opposition in the form of parental or civil authority, depart the jurisdiction of both into a green world where they are freed from external constraints and liberated to resolve all the impediments to their passions. This is the pattern of Two Gentlemen of Verona, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, The Winter’s Tale, and Cymbeline. The other dominant pattern in Shakespeare’s comedies, as employed in The Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, and Twelfth Night , is not escape but invasion. In these plays the arrival of outsiders serves as a catalyst to upset stalemated relationships and to revivify a stagnating community. “The obstacles to love in comedies of this alternate pattern,” Hawkins argues, “are not external—social convention, favored rivals, disapproving parents. Resistance comes from the lovers themselves.” The intrusion of new characters and the new relationships they stimulate serve to break the emotional deadlock and allow true love to flourish.

As Twelfth Night  opens, Orsino, the duke of Illyria, is stalled in his desire for the countess Olivia, who, in mourning for her brother, has “abjured the company and sight of men” to live like a “cloistress” for seven years to protract an excessive, melancholy love of grief. As Orsino makes clear in the play’s famous opening speech, lacking a focus for his affection due to Olivia’s resistance, he indulges in the torment of unrequited love:

If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken and so die. That strain again, it had a dying fall. O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour. Enough, no more, ’Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

Both have withdrawn into self-centered, sentimental melancholy, and the agents to break through the narcissistic impediments to true love and the stasis in Illyria are the shipwrecked twins Viola and Sebastian. Viola, believing her brother drowned, dresses as a man to seek protection as a page in the household of Orsino. As the young man Cesario, she is commissioned by Orsino, with whom she has fallen in love, as his envoy to Olivia. Viola, one of Shakespeare’s greatest heroines in her wit, understanding, and resourcefulness, is, like Olivia, mourning a brother, but her grief neither isolates nor paralyzes her; neither is her love for Orsino an indulgence in an abstract, sentimental longing. It is precisely her superiority in affection and humanity that offers an implied lesson to both duke and countess in the proper working of the heart. Both Olivia and Orsino will be instructed through the agency of Viola’s arrival that true love is not greedy and self-consuming but unselfish and generous. Initially Viola plays her part as persistent ambassador of love too well. In a scene that masterfully exploits Viola’s gender-bending disguise (as performed in Shakespeare’s time, a boy plays a young woman playing a boy) and her ambivalent mission to win a lady for the man she loves, Viola succeeds in penetrating Olivia’s various physical and emotional defenses by her witty mockery of the established language and conventions of courtship. Accused of being “the cruell’st she alive / If you will lead these graces to the grave / And leave the world no copy,” Olivia finally yields, but it is Cesario, not Orsino who captures her affection. In summarizing the romantic complications produced by her persuasiveness, Viola observes:

. . . As I am man, My state is desperate for my master’s love; As I am woman (now alas the day!), What thriftless sights shall poor Olivia breathe! O time, thou must untangle this, not I, It is too hard a knot for me t’untie.

Not too hard, however, for the playwright, as Shakespeare sets in motion some of his funniest and ingenious scenes leading up to the untangling.

The romantic comedy of Orsino, Olivia, and Viola/Cesario is balanced and contrasted by a second plot involving Olivia’s carousing cousin, Sir Toby Belch; his gull, the fatuous Sir Andrew Aguecheek, whom Toby encourages in a hopeless courtship of Olivia for the sake of extracting his money; the maid Maria; Olivia’s jester, Feste; and Olivia’s steward, Malvolio. Maria describes the dutiful, restrained, judgmental Malvolio as “a kind of puritan,” who condemns the late-night carousing of Sir Toby and his companions and urges his mistress to dismiss her jester. As the sour opponent of revelry, Malvolio prompts Sir Toby to utter one of the plays most famous lines: “Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?” Virtues, Toby suggests, must acknowledge and accommodate the human necessity for the pleasures of life. All need a holiday. Malvolio as the adversary of the forces of festival that the play celebrates will be exposed as, in Olivia’s words, “sick of self-love” who tastes “with a distemper’d appetite.” Malvolio is, therefore, linked with both Orsino and Olivia in their self-centeredness. By connecting Malvolio’s particular brand of self-enclosure in opposition to the spirit of merriment represented by Sir Toby and his company of revelers, Shakespeare expands his critique of the impediments to love into a wider social context that recognizes the efficacy of misrule to break down the barriers isolating individuals. The carousers conspire to convince Malvolio that Olivia has fallen in love with him, revealing his ambition for power and dominance that stands behind his holier-than-thou veneer. Malvolio aspires to become Count Malvolio, gaining Olivia to command others and securing the deference his egotism considers his due. Convinced by a forged love letter from Olivia to be surly with the servants, to smile constantly in Olivia’s presence, and to wear yellow stockings cross-gartered (all of which Olivia abhors), the capering Malvolio prompts Olivia to conclude that he has lost his wits and orders his confinement in a dark cell. Symbolically, Malvolio’s punishment is fitted to his crime of self-obsession, of misappropriating love for self-gain.

With the play’s killjoy bated, chastened, and contained, the magic of love and reconciliation flourishes, and Twelfth Night  builds to its triumphant, astounding climax. First Sebastian surfaces in Illyria and, mistaken for Cesario, finds himself dueling with Sir Andrew and claimed by Olivia as her groom in a hastily arranged wedding. Next Viola, as Cesario, is mistaken for Sebastian by Antonio, her brother’s rescuer, and is saluted by Olivia as her recently married husband, prompting Orsino’s wrath at being betrayed by his envoy. Chaos and confusion give way to wonderment, reunion, and affection with the appearance of Sebastian on stage to the astonishment of Olivia and Orsino, who see Cesario’s double, and to the joy of Viola who is reunited with her lost brother. Olivia’s shock at having married a perfect stranger, that the man she had loved as Cesario is a woman, and Orsino’s loss of Olivia are happily resolved in a crescendo of wish fulfillment and poetic justice. Olivia fell in love with a woman but gains her male replica; Orsino learns that the page he has grown so fond of was actually a woman. Viola gains the man she loves, and the formerly lovesick Orsino now has an object of his affection worthy of his passion.

The one discordant note in the festivities is Malvolio. He is released from his confinement, and Olivia learns of the “sportful malice” of his deception. Invited to share the joke and acknowledge its justification, Malvolio exits with a curse on the guilty and the innocent alike: “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you.” Shakespeare allows Malvolio’s dissent to the comic climax of love and laughter to stand. Malvolio, as Olivia acknowledges, has “been most notoriously abused.” Much of the laughter of Twelfth Night has come at his expense, and if the play breaks through the selfish privacy of Orsino and Olivia into love, companionship, and harmony, Malvolio remains implacable and unresolved. He is an embodiment of the dark counterforce of hatred and evil that will begin to dominate Shakespeare’s imagination and claim mastery in the tragedies and the dark comedies. Twelfth Night  ends in the joyful fulfillment of love’s triumph, but the sense of this being the exception not the rule is sounded by Feste’s concluding song in which rain, not sunshine, is the norm, and Twelfth Night comes only once a year:

When that I was and a little tiny boy, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, A foolish thing was but a toy, For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came to man’s estate, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, ’Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate, For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came, alas, to wive, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, By swaggering could I never thrive, For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came unto my beds, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, With tosspots still had drunken heads, For the rain it raineth every day.

A great while ago the world begun, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, But that’s all one, our play is done, And we’ll strive to please you every day.

Twelfth Night Oxford Lecture by Prof. Emma Smith

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Twelfth night, by william shakespeare, recommendations from our site.

” What I really like about this play is its sexual playfulness. It seems very modern in that way. There’s no way to play it straight. You’ve either got Orsino in love with Cesario, or you’ve got Olivia in love with Viola, and you’ve always got Antonio in love with Sebastian. It feels to me as if its subtitle What You Will , is a cheeky way of saying ‘whatever, anything goes’. I like the fact that quite often you see productions where at the end Olivia and Orsino are still mixing up the twin they are with and there’s still playfulness. “ Read more...

Shakespeare’s Best Plays

Emma Smith , Literary Scholar

“Twelfth Night is a lovely mellow play. A play which has more comedy in it, in the scenes involving Malvolio. Donald Sinden was a wonderful Malvolio and he has a marvellous essay about it, which I talk about in my book about great Shakespeare actors. He’s very good at describing the self-consciousness of the actor in manipulating his audience as Malvolio. At the same time, it’s a maturely romantic play. Take the lover Orsino, his opening scene, “If music be the food of love, play on” is one of the best known lines in Shakespeare. It’s a play that rises to a great climax of reunion. Again, it looks forward to the late plays like The Winter’s Tale in the almost miraculous sense you get in the final scene when Viola is reunited with her brother she believed to be dead. It’s a very beautiful and very moving scene. It covers a wide range of comedy and romance. It’s very entertaining in the scenes with Sir Toby Belch.” Read more...

Stanley Wells recommends the best of Shakespeare’s Plays

Stanley Wells , Literary Scholar

Other books by William Shakespeare

Titus andronicus (arden shakespeare) by jonathan bate & william shakespeare, all the sonnets of shakespeare by paul edmonson, stanley wells & william shakespeare, the art of shakespeare's sonnets by helen vendler & william shakespeare, shakespeare's sonnets by katherine duncan-jones & william shakespeare, illustrated stories from shakespeare by anna claybourne, rosie dickins & william shakespeare, hamlet by william shakespeare, our most recommended books, great expectations by charles dickens, jane eyre by charlotte brontë, wuthering heights by emily brontë, emma by jane austen, the great gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald, antony and cleopatra by william shakespeare.

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Book Review: Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare is a comedic play that explores themes of love, mistaken identity, and the topsy-turvy nature of life. Set in the fictional Illyria, the play follows the adventures of Viola, who, shipwrecked and assuming her twin brother Sebastian is dead, disguises herself as a young man named Cesario.

One of the strengths of Twelfth Night lies in its intricate and cleverly woven plot. The play is known for its comedic elements, with mistaken identities, love triangles, and a series of humorous misunderstandings that lead to a joyful resolution. Shakespeare’s use of language is masterful, as he employs wordplay, puns, and clever dialogue to create both comedic and poignant moments.

The characters in Twelfth Night are memorable and diverse. Viola’s character, in particular, is noteworthy for her wit, intelligence, and the challenges she faces while concealing her true identity. Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek provide comic relief with their boisterous antics, while Malvolio adds a touch of seriousness as a character who becomes the victim of a prank.

The exploration of love in Twelfth Night is multifaceted. The play delves into the themes of unrequited love, self-love, and the often irrational nature of romantic feelings. The relationships between characters are complex, and the resolution of these relationships in the final act adds a satisfying and heartwarming conclusion to the play.

The play’s title, Twelfth Night , refers to the tradition of celebrating the twelfth night after Christmas as a time of revelry and festivity. This festive atmosphere is mirrored in the play’s joyful tone and the spirit of celebration that pervades the storyline.

While Twelfth Night is primarily a comedy, it also touches on deeper themes such as the fluidity of gender roles and the transformative power of love. The play challenges societal norms of the time, and Viola’s gender disguise provides a thought-provoking exploration of identity and perception.

In conclusion, Twelfth Night is a timeless and engaging play that showcases Shakespeare’s skill in crafting intricate plots and memorable characters. With its blend of comedy, romance, and social commentary, it continues to captivate audiences and remains a classic within the Shakespearean canon.

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By William Shakespeare Written between 1601-1602

General Note: In January 2009 I decided that I�d like to go back and read all the plays of William Shakespeare, perhaps one a month if that works out. I hadn�t read a Shakespeare play since 1959, 50 years ago! But I had read nearly all of them in college. I wanted to go back, start with something not too serious or challenging, and work my way through the whole corpus. Thus I began with The Two Gentlemen of Verona. At this time I have no idea how the project will go, nor if it will actually lead me through the entire corpus of Shakespeare�s plays. However, I will keep a separate page listing each play I�ve read with links to any comments I would make of that particular play. See: List of Shakespeare�s play�s I�ve read and commented on

COMMENTS ON TWELFTH NIGHT OR WHAT YOU WILL

Twelfth Night is a quick read, fun in the main, mean in places, but not one of Shakespeare�s more exceptional works.

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Twelfth Night

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Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Twelfth Night: Introduction

Twelfth night: plot summary, twelfth night: detailed summary & analysis, twelfth night: themes, twelfth night: quotes, twelfth night: characters, twelfth night: symbols, twelfth night: literary devices, twelfth night: quizzes, twelfth night: theme wheel, brief biography of william shakespeare.

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• Full Title: Twelfth Night, or What You Will
• When Written: c. 1601
• Where Written: England
• When Published: 1623
• Literary Period: The Renaissance
• Genre: Comedy
• Setting: Illyria (an ancient area on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, between contemporary Croatia, Albania, and Montenegro)
• Climax: The weddings of Viola and Orsino, and Sebastian and Olivia

Extra Credit for Twelfth Night

What a drag! Twelfth Night is sometimes called a "transvestite comedy" for the obvious reason that its central character is a young woman, Viola, who disguises herself as a pageboy, Cesario. In Shakespeare's time, Viola's part, like all the parts in Twelfth Night , would have been played by a man, because women were not allowed to act. So, originally, "Cesario" would probably have been a boy, dressed up as a woman, dressed up as a man.

Feast of Misrule: Twelfth Night takes its name from an English holiday celebrated on January 5, the so-called "twelfth night of Christmas" or the Eve of the Feast of the Epiphany. In Renaissance England, Twelfth Night was known as a "feast of misrule." For the day, kings and nobles were to be treated as peasants, and peasants as kings and nobles. At the center of the Twelfth Night feast was a large cake with a bean or coin baked into it and served to the assembled company; the person whose slice of cake contained it became King Bean, the Christmas King, or Lord of Misrule—a commoner who would take the place of a king in order to watch over the topsy-turvy proceedings.

Two titles. Twelfth Night is the only play of Shakespeare's with an alternate name: its full title is Twelfth Night, or What You Will . The second title references the holiday season of ritualized disorder and revelry, where you can act out all your fantasies.

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Twelfth Night —an allusion to the night of festivity preceding the Christian celebration of the Epiphany—combines love, confusion, mistaken identities, and joyful discovery.

After the twins Sebastian and Viola survive a shipwreck, neither knows that the other is alive. Viola goes into service with Count Orsino of Illyria, disguised as a young man, “Cesario.” Orsino sends Cesario to woo the Lady Olivia on his behalf, but Olivia falls in love with Cesario. Viola, in the meantime, has fallen in love with Orsino.

At the estate of Lady Olivia, Sir Toby Belch , Olivia’s kinsman, has brought in Sir Andrew Aguecheek to be her suitor. A confrontation between Olivia’s steward, Malvolio, and the partying Toby and his cohort leads to a revenge plot against Malvolio. Malvolio is tricked into making a fool of himself, and he is locked in a dungeon as a lunatic.

In the meantime, Sebastian has been rescued by a sea captain, Antonio. When Viola, as Cesario, is challenged to a duel, Antonio mistakes her for Sebastian, comes to her aid, and is arrested. Olivia, meanwhile, mistakes Sebastian for Cesario and declares her love. When, finally, Sebastian and Viola appear together, the puzzles around the mistaken identities are solved: Cesario is revealed as Viola, Orsino asks for Viola’s hand, Sebastian will wed Olivia, and Viola will marry Count Orsino. Malvolio, blaming Olivia and others for his humiliation, vows revenge.

Book Review: Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night is a play written by William Shakespeare. It is about multiple love triangles that take place in Illyria. The main problem is that two twins both think the other is dead and are mistaken for each other which creates many problems.

Twelfth Night is a horrible play/book. It is very dull and extremely confusing as people's names are changed throughout the play and people are constantly being mistaken for each other. Unless you have to read this, I would not recommend this book to anyone unless they want to sit through a very confusing, dull play.

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Review: ‘Twelfth Night,’ Anything Goes in Love and Shakespeare

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By Charles Isherwood

• Sept. 4, 2016

Everybody’s pretty much crazy in love in Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” so it seems natural to include a shout-out to the Beyoncé song of that name in the contemporary musical adaptation of the play that finishes a brief Labor Day weekend run on Monday night at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

As in the similar previous productions from the Public Theater’s Public Works program, which bring together professional and amateur actors as well as civic and cultural groups, almost anything and everything goes in this free-spirited, thoroughly delightful gloss on Shakespeare’s beloved comedy — the full title of which, after all, is “Twelfth Night, or What You Will.” No sign of Big Bird this time, as there was in the production of “The Winter’s Tale,” but a giant stuffed Pikachu, of Pokémon fame, makes an appearance. (Full disclosure: I had to consult my companion to identify him. Her? It?)

The adaptation is by Kwame Kwei-Armah, who directs, and Shaina Taub . Ms. Taub also provides the buoyant jazz-and-R&B-inflected score, and has a plump role in the proceedings as the not-so-foolish fool Feste, who presides over the show from her perch in a bright-green, decal-covered 1970s sedan parked at the side of the stage. Illyria, where the play is set, is represented by a mostly bare stage painted in swirling stripes of bright bold colors by David Zinn, suggesting a Frank Stella painting.

The eye-popping colors, matched in many of the costumes by Andrea Hood, suit the production’s jubilant mood. Yes, the Countess Olivia (a gravely dignified Nanya-Akuki Goodrich) maintains her traditional mourning and resistance to the overtures of love from the Duke Orsino (a gallant, man-bunned Jose Llana). But her misery is set to music by the Jambalaya Brass Band , which trails after her, lending sweet sounds to her wailing woe.

It’s not long before Olivia succumbs to the earnest appeals of Nikki M. James’s Viola, disguised as Orsino’s servant Cesario, whose radiant innocence and ardor would seduce even the saddest woman. Although a fair amount of Shakespeare’s dialogue has been jettisoned in favor of more contemporary language — with which it blends with surprising fluidity — Ms. James, a Tony winner for “The Book of Mormon,” stands out for her elegant verse-speaking as well as the emotional timbres she brings to her performance. As Viola finds herself wooed when she is in male guise by Olivia, Viola falls in love with the Duke Orsino, even as she mourns a twin brother she believes lost, Sebastian (the fine Troy Burton, whose nonresemblance to Ms. James is played for a fun gag).

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Culture | Theatre

Twelfth Night review: The Globe’s most subtle and illuminating show since it reopened

What lyrical, lovely, riotous fun this is. Sean Holmes’s interval-free, 140-minute production of Shakespeare ’s romance takes a fistful of disparate, apparently contradictory elements and knots them into something utterly beguiling. It shouldn’t work but it does. Globe boss Michelle Terry is both moving and very amusing as our cross-dressing heroine Viola. But it seems almost wrong to single her out from a talented, playful ensemble that works together with exceptional smoothness.

The gender and colourblind casting that’s become the norm at the Globe melds neatly with this story of castaways, assumed identity, and sexual confusion. A scattergun approach to place, costume and music that is also often a regrettable Globe trait this time pays dividends, somehow turning the non-specific into the universal.

We’re in Vegas - sort of – complete with a broken neon sign, a wrecked pickup truck and a lounge band in the gallery. There’s also a dead stag bleeding out and a fairground-carousel tiger (no, me neither). But when Viola is washed ashore she resembles a bedraggled Elizabeth I , before disguising herself as a cavalier in bulbous green breeches. Shona Babayemi’s leonine, imperious Olivia wears extravagant party outfits but Bryan Dick’s sketchy Orsino is in beard, boots and bad-boy denim.

Nadine Higgin’s Rabelasian Toby Belch is almost a tramp, toughing his/her way through a slab of cans with George Fouracres’ deliriously funny Aguecheek, a riviera dandy with a fey Brummie accent. Neither Victoria Elliott’s sweet-voiced Feste nor Sophie Russell’s baffled, peevish Malvolio occupy a fixed point on the gender spectrum. Which is surely the point. Though why Fabian – often cut but strangely prominent here – is in Thunderbirds cosplay is anybody’s guess.

It sounds broad-brush but much of the production is detailed and fine grained: the way composer James Fortune’s songs are shared out among the cast and grow out of the action; the precise, palpable second when Olivia falls for Viola; the sense of complicit mischief among the unruly characters.

Viola’s vulnerability and tendency to overshare are explained when Ciarán O’Brien turns up as her smug, boorish brother Sebastian. He barely notices his supposedly drowned sister – I’ve never seen it played this way before – which gives Terry further opportunity to exercise her immaculate physical comic timing.

It’s never played just for laughs, though. The taunting of Malvolio is jocular until it suddenly isn’t. The realisation that things have gone too far dawns visibly on Elliot’s Feste, as the hypocritical, would-be puritan is pitched into full on hysteria. I’d like to commend Russell for maintaining her dignity in a yellow, cross-gartered full-body stocking in the final scene.

Splashy, slapdash and apparently random on the surface, this show turns out to be delicate and nuanced underneath – the most subtle and illuminating interpretation of Shakespeare here since the Globe reopened .

In rep to 30 Oct: shakespearesglobe.com

Is this a reopening I see before me? The stewards of Shakespeare’s Globe on welcoming audiences back

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Review: Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT Proves to Be a Romantic Case of Mistaken Identities at Jobsite Theatre

Onstage through February 11th.

“One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons...”- Orsino

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“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them...” -Malvolio

Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy written by William Shakespeare . Its central story revolves around twins Viola and Sebastian who were separated in a shipwreck. Viola (disguised as Cesario) falls in love with Count Orsino, who also happens to be in love with Olivia.

In thinking she is a man, Olivia then falls in love with Viola (Cesario).

On the other hand, in the play’s subplot, Malvolio is convinced Olivia has fallen for him.

Then enters Sir Toby Belch, yet another willful suitor, and pompous uncle to Olivia, and a squire by the name of Sir Andrew Aguecheek. The two men revel and drink and disturb Olivia’s household. Then with the help of two servants, Maria and Fabian, the group set out to seek revenge on Malvolio.  They convince Malvolio that Olivia is indeed in love with him, and therefore convince him to wear yellow stockings cross-gartered, a color and fashion sense Olivia indeed despises, and that he should smile in Olivia’s presence.

Back to the twin’s plot, Sebastian is rescued by Antonio, and as he is dressed exactly like Cesario (Viola), Olivia then asks for his hand in marriage and the two are secretly wed in a church. Viola reveals her true identity and is reunited with Sebastian. In the plays final moments, Viola and Orsino wed.

Twelfth Night comes from the Christian holiday centered around the Eve of the Feast of Epiphany. During such a holiday feasting, revelry, and drinking all took place. Servants would dress up as Masters, men as women, women as men, etc... Malvolio is considered to be Puritan in Shakespeare’s story because much like the Puritans, Malvolio despised the revelry that took place.

Jobsite Theater, Resident theater company of the Straz Center, has once again captured the work of the Bard, truly, in a way only known to Jobsite and its players. No other company embraces Shakespeare the way it is handled by the skill-full workings of the Jobsite Ensemble. I have said it before, and I will continue to say it, “No one rocks the Bard as hard and as relevant as Jobsite and its players.”

David Jenkins and team have done it again, by creating a truly magical evening at the theatre. This tale of mistaken identities, unrequited love, and silly romantic notions is strung together so perfectly and with the addition of musical interludes wonderfully accompanied by Jeremy Douglass making this the perfect date night out.

From top to bottom this cast is exquisite in comedic timing and bravura.

The always exceptional Cornelio Aguilera is wonderful as Antonio, the smooth nature of his delivery and stage presence makes his turn as the Sea Captain and friend to Sebastian a joy to watch.

Giles Davies captures the essence of Count Orsino with perfection. Having last played Malvolio in a previous Jobsite staging of this very show, it was wonderful to see him as the Count. Two things go hand-in hand when one thinks of Shakespeare, especially in the Tampa Bay region, Giles and Jobsite, and no greater a pair has ever met.

As Curio and Valentine, Landon Green and Shaun Memmel, respectively are the attentive and sometimes aloof attendants to the Duke. They equally display great stage presence and are always in the moment from the time they step on stage. Always giving us something to watch, and keeping us guessing throughout their plight, both great additions to the company.

Kathryn Huettel as Fabian is a perfect match as one of Olivia’s servants.  Her antics and unabashed nature especially in moments where the trickery of Malvolio is involved are wonderful to watch. Even the subtle use of the yo-yo gives us an extra layer as to who Fabian is, and it’s great to see her in this arena.

Feste is beautifully portrayed and captured by Roxanne Fay . From the musical interludes showing off her singing abilities to the moments where you’re never quite sure what she is up to, Roxanne is always on 100% and her moment-to-moment exceptionally planned out from start to finish.

As our twins Viola and Sebastian, Noa Friedman and Newt Rametta, respectively, are entertaining and you feel for their plights in every moment. Not only is the casting exceptional here, but the costume work is so calculated to the finest detail, that its almost impossible to tell the two apart onstage.

Standing in for the role of Maria, and for an absent Ami Sallee is Katrina Stevenson . Taking on a role with a 24-hour notice and little to no rehearsal is no small feat. With the support of the cast and crew behind her, Katrina delivers her moments as Maria with gusto. Her moments with Sir Toby Belch are so fun to watch you forget she is even holding a script. Hats off to her, for she moved through with the utmost of ease, and is always a great addition to the company, and exceptional to watch in every moment.

Jared Sellick is the hilarious squire Sir Andrew Aguecheek. His antics with Sir Toby Belch will have you crying with laughter, and his delivery throughout this piece is one to watch.

Nicole Jeannine Smith is our Olivia and plays the part with the utmost bravura. The moments between her and Orsino, and between her and Sebastian are the things only seen in movies. Mistaken identities and mistaken love all intertwined with hilarious moments will make your heart sing.

Standing in for an absent Jim Wicker, is David Jenkins as Sir Toby Belch. His moments of hijinks with Sir Andrew, and his tender moments with Maria are both delivered with great forte. So much so, that the script he holds merely becomes a part of his character. Hats off to him for stepping into the role with 24 hours notice. I will always move mountains to see David Jenkins in any role, and this is one I was truly humbled to experience.

With such an ensemble piece as this is, it would be hard to declare best in show. However, the stunning work presented by Katherine Yacko as Malvolio is something almost other-worldly. Her comedic timing is some of the best work I have seen in some time. The way she travels through the space is as if she takes on another persona and we are just lucky enough to experience it for all its greatness. She truly steals the show in the best way possible and there are times you get lost in her arc alone. I could sit back and watch a show with Malvolio at its center, a one-person show trapped in the mind of Malvolio. What a truly stunning turn, and a grandiose nature delivered here.

Beautifully rendered and captured in all of its Technical brilliance, Twelfth Night is uniquely Jobsite. Set Design by Brian Smallheer, Costumes by Katrina Stevenson , Lighting Design by Jo Averill-Snell, and Composition/Stage Management by Jeremy Douglass all working hand-in-hand to provide a cohesive and well-thought-out world for our characters to reside.

David Jenkins and team have done it again, providing an escape from our everyday lives, and thrusting us head-first into the lives of characters not to un-like ourselves. Taking classic text and flipping it, the way only Jobsite can and truly creating a magical night of theatre. I will always see Shakespeare when Jobsite’s name is attached for we are always privy to something groundbreaking and outside of the box, but always relevant to the time and place in which we currently live. That truly makes all the difference.

Tickets to Twelfth Night can be purchased by visiting the Straz Center’s website at the button below, or by calling the box-office. Onstage through February 11th in the Jaeb Theatre, making this the perfect date night out. So indulge in the revelry, and take a trip to the coast of Illyria, for you’ll be mighty glad you did!

  “What is love? ’Tis not hereafter.

  Present mirth hath present laughter.

   What’s to come is still unsure.

  In delay there lies no plenty,

  Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty.

   Youth’s a stuff will not endure.” -Feste

Photo Credit: Stage Photography of Tampa (spot)

Tampa/St. Petersburg SHOWS

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