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improving
on shakespeare?
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10.17.08
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"The
plots are often so loosely formed that a very slight consideration may
improve them, and so carelessly pursued that he seems not always fully
to comprehend his own design." —Samuel Johnson, on
Shakespeare's plays
I
don't claim that ILLYRIA is an improvement on the Bard, but I've always
been very pleased with and proud of the few changes I made to the plot
of Twelfth Night in adapting it. True, for every change I
made, there were probably about ten cases where I tried tinkering with
something only to realize why it was better Shakespeare's way.
But here are a few of the changes that really seemed to work
well:
1)
Toby and Maria are developed as a secondary comic romance, unfolding by
way of their practical jokes, so that their eventual marriage feels
less arbitrary. What initially appears to be Maria's scheme
to fool Malvolio turns out to be a scheme to fool Sir Toby into
marrying her. When Toby is on the verge of being thrown out
of Countess Olivia's house for the cruel prank on Malvolio, his only
means of escape (provided by Maria) is to claim that the love letter
Malvolio found--which spoke of a noble person's love for a lowly
servant--was a letter he'd written to Maria. And so, at the
story's end, we have a new understanding of what Maria was thinking
when she initially laid out the plan to Toby, saying "The man is
mine..."
2)
Rather than calling herself Caesario, Viola simply adopts her brother's
name when she is disguised as a boy. This allows for some
delicious comic misunderstandings once the real Sebastian shows up.
For instance, when Olivia comes to Sebastian's aid in the
duel, she uses his name. When he says, wonderingly, "You
called me Sebastian..." she replies, "I know it is wrong of me to be so
familiar, but in the short time we've known each other, you've become
very dear to me." As far as Sebastian knows, that "short
time" is about half a minute. But Viola's use of her
brother's name pays even bigger dividends when Sebastian goes to the
Duke's palace... see below.
3)
Duke Orsino, who largely disappears from the later part of
Shakespeare's play, is given an extra scene that does not appear in
Twelfth Night. Left alone at his palace, the Duke muses on
his hopeless love for Olivia, and how it is his servant Sebastian who
truly understands him best... and whose lips are more "smooth and
rubious." Then, just as the Duke is confronting these
alarming feelings of his, the real Sebastian shows up to seek a
position as a servant. What follows is a pretty rich
misunderstanding--as Orsino confesses his love to the bewildered
Sebastian, who eventually flees. As silly as the moment is,
it fills in a part of Orsino's arc that does not appear in the play:
that moment when Orsino comes to realize that it's not
Olivia but Sebastian (i.e. Viola) he loves.
4)
Malvolio is given a happy(er) ending. Rather than have Malvolio stalk
off saying "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you," we instead give
him a chance at reconciliation and redemption. After
Malvolio complains bitterly that everyone is to be married and yet
there is no consolation for him, Toby says, "Might I make a
suggestion...?"--which is the cue for a reprise of "Cakes And Ale."
When it appeared earlier in the show, the song was about the
provocation and humiliation of Malvolio. Now Toby offers it
to him as an olive branch. Near the end of the verse, Toby
pauses at a crucial moment... will Malvolio reject Toby's peace
offering? No, he joins in the refrain, and this gesture
launches us into the final choruses of the show. Some may
think it's sacrilege to change Malvolio's ending; the Shakespearean
version is undeniably truer to the character. But hey--this
is a musical; and more to the point, it's a musical that is several
shades lighter in tone than the original play throughout.
How can our cast sing a final joyful refrain if Malvolio's bitterness
has been left to fester?
5)
The circular journey of Olivia's ring is a minor bit of plotting
legerdemain, but it makes me happy. In Twelfth Night, Olivia
sends Malvolio after Viola to return what Olivia says is the Duke's
ring--an unwanted gift. In fact, it's Olivia's own ring,
which she's sending Viola as a love token. In the
Shakespeare, Viola refuses to take the ring, so Malvolio drops it on
the ground... end of story. In ILLYRIA, Viola pockets the
ring, and in a later scene she gives it to Orsino as a token of "a
servant's love." Later, when Orsino has come to realize his
feelings for Viola, he tries to give the ring back as a token of his
love... except that he foists it upon the real Sebastian rather than
Viola. And finally, at the end of the show, Sebastian offers
the ring to Olivia as a marriage proposal, saying, "I hope it fits."
Olivia sees the ring and replies, "I'm sure it will."
Musings Past
