Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare Read Free Book Online Page A

Malvolio, emphasizing comedy rather than pathos as the “peacock-like” steward was always followed by “four smaller Malvolios in the production who aped the large one in dress and deportment.” 13
    Essentially an ensemble piece with the lines distributed more-or-less evenly across the major roles, twentieth-century productions generally eschewed the earlier practice of building up a star part. Harley Granville-Barker’s “legendary” 14 1912 production at the Savoy Theatre, influenced by the ideas and practices of Poel, has proved of lasting significance in thinking about the play. Michael Billington records how
    Norman Wilkinson’s black-and-silver setting, evoking a half-Italianised Elizabethan court, combined beauty with intimacy: there was a formal garden with a great staircase right and left,with drop curtains and a small inner tapestry set for the carousal. The verse was spoken with lightness, speed, and dexterity … above all, Granville-Barker got rid of all the false accretions of stage tradition and sought for the essential truth of character. 15
    Lillah McCarthy’s Viola was praised as was Arthur Whitby’s Sir Toby. Henry Ainley played Malvolio as a “Puritan prig,” while one of the chief innovations was the casting of the middle-aged Hayden Coffin as Feste, whom Barker saw as “not a young man,” adding: “There runs through all he says and does that vein of irony through which we may so often mark one of life’s self-acknowledged failures.” 16
    Barker himself admired the French-language version by Jacques

    1. Harley Granville-Barker production, Savoy Theatre, 1912, the “black and silver setting evoking a half Italianised Elizabethan court,” depicting Henry Ainley as Malvolio, Arthur Whitby as Sir Toby, Leah Bateman Hunter as Maria, Hayden Coffin as Feste, and Leon Quartermaine as Sir Andrew.
    Copeau first staged in 1914 at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier. He reviewed the 1921 revival favorably, noting with approval the “precision, variety, clarity and, above all, passion” of the actors’ diction. 17 There were several revivals in the 1930s and 1940s. Edith Evans played Viola in Harcourt Williams’ 1932 production at the Old Vic. Five years later, again at the Old Vic, Tyrone Guthrie directed Laurence Olivier as Sir Toby, Alec Guinness as Sir Andrew, and Marius Goring as Feste, with Jessica Tandy playing both Viola and Sebastian. Jacques Copeau’s nephew, Michel Saint-Denis, staged the play at the Phoenix in 1938 with Peggy Ashcroft as a remarkable Viola, a production that was subsequently filmed for the BBC. In Margaret Webster’s 1940–41 Theatre Guild production at New York’s St. James’ Theater the Jacobean masque provided inspiration for set and costumes. Helen Hayes’ Viola was warmly praised, although opinions were divided about Maurice Evans’ Malvolio, played as “a Cockney, a head butler raised to sublimation.” 18
    Hugh Hunt’s 1950 Old Vic revival owed much to the Italian
commedia dell’arte
—both “arty
and
hearty”: “Its best bits are the hearty bits, centred around a fine scarlet-faced, broad-bottomed, big-bellied, rasping Roger Livesey as Sir Toby. Its worst bits are the arty framework which the producer has thought fit to provide.” 19 Peggy Ashcroft playing Viola was singled out for praise:
    It is long since I have seen a Viola so fitted to the play. Peggy Ashcroft is never brisk or pert, never self-consciously disguised … She is very quiet, very loyal. She does not juggle with words … this Viola realises what love can be—she is not toying with it—and the “willow cabin” speech comes from her with an absolute sincerity, with no kind of elaborate preparation … And this is not Peggy Ashcroft’s finest moment: that comes at the very end, when Viola, her lost brother before her, answers his question, “What countryman? What name? What parentage?” with the barely-breathed “Of Messaline.” Now the play is played. Viola has