Twelfth Night

Soon after finishing ‘Twelfth Night’, I watched the 1996 movie adaptation by Trevor Nunn and was better able to appreciate the play. Four hundred years before gender, queerness and homoerotic love became a fad, we have the Bard tackling all these themes in a comedy without breaking a sweat.

That said, I found the plot undeniably strange. How does Viola fall for a man (Orsino) who is hopelessly in love with someone else (Olivia), and how does that same man so easily accept her despite her masquerading as a man all along? Something really weird.

In the play, everyone seems to be in love with someone or the other:

• Viola loves Orsino – but she’s disguised as a man, “Cesario,” so she can’t tell him.
• Orsino loves Olivia – or at least, he believes he does
• Olivia loves “Cesario” (Viola) – believing Viola to be a charming young man.
• Sebastian ends up being mistaken for Cesario – and Olivia quickly falls for him and marries him.
• Sir Aguecheek also fancies Olivia – but stands no real chance
• Antonio, the sea captain, seems deeply devoted to Sebastian and his homoeroticism remains unfulfilled. Poor chap…

Shakespeare’s probably asking if love can ever be rational and real? Often, it’s the idea of being in love that draws us all into the other. Limerence  – a word that I discovered yesterday, could be a nice explanation –  It’s the feeling that someone is your absolute ‘perfect match’ but is also always inconveniently out of reach.

Then there’s Malvolio, whom Shakespeare mocks for his puritan beliefs. This was also the bard’s attempt at hitting out at the puritans who were hell bent on shutting down the theatres during his time. The whole Malvolio-Sir Toby dynamic could also be seen as a forewarning for the looming Puritan-Aristocratic conflict that would erupt into the Civil War that was to plague England in a few decades. Shakespeare was prescient enough to foresee this.

The lines that are going to stay with me:

• “If music be the food of love, play on.”
• “Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.”
• “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.”
• “Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness.”
• “Love sought is good, but giv’n unsought is better.”
• “This fellow is wise enough to play the fool.”

The Shakespeare Project so far: Macbeth | The Tempest | The Merchant of Venice