Twelfth Night or What You Will

At one time adaptors of Shakespeare for the cinema trended to concentrate more on his tragedies and history plays rather than his comedies. The 1990s, however, saw two very fine adaptations of Shakespearean comedies, Kenneth Branagh's "Much Ado about Nothing" and Trevor Nunn's "Twelfth Night".

"Twelfth Night" is another name for the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6th, and the action of the play is supposed to take place around that date. Nunn, however, did not shoot this film in winter but in autumn; filming actually took place in November, but the crew were mostly lucky with the weather and the look of the countryside might suggest late September or early October. Although the setting is still officially "Illyria", an old name for Croatia, Nunn effectively updates the action to Victorian England. The film was shot on location in Cornwall, with St Michael's Mount standing in for Orsino's palace and Lanhydrock for Olivia's mansion.

Unlike his contemporary Marlowe in "Edward II", Shakespeare never dealt directly with the subject of homosexuality, but "Twelfth Night" is perhaps the play in which he came closest to dealing with it by implication. The plot revolves around a curious love-triangle, A loves B, who loves C, who loves A. Orsino, Duke of Illyria, is in love with the beautiful countess Olivia. She, however, has no interest in Orsino, but has fallen for "Cesario", the handsome young man whom Orsino uses as his go-between. Unknown to both Orsino and Olivia, however, the supposed "Cesario" is really a disguised woman, Viola- who has fallen in love with her employer. An extra complication- and a possible solution to the problem- arises when Viola's identical twin brother Sebastian, whom she previously believed to be dead, arrives on the scene. (Yes, I know that in reality you cannot have identical opposite-sex twins, but Shakespearean comedies are not noted for their strict realism).

The lesbian overtones to the Olivia/Viola relationship would probably have been rather muted in Shakespeare's day when all female roles would have been played by boys, but here Helena Bonham-Carter and Imogen Stubbs (the director's wife) make the most of them. Even with the assistance of a quasi-military uniform and a false moustache, the lovely Imogen never looks particularly masculine, so there is an implication that Olivia has fallen for someone she consciously believes to be male but subconsciously knows to be female. The gay overtones to the relationship between Toby Stephens' Orsino and "Cesario", and to that between Sebastian and Antonio, the sea-captain who has befriended him, are perhaps even stronger. Certainly, Orsino's conversations with "Cesario" seem remarkably intimate if he really does believe his young companion to be male.

Along with the likes of "Much Ado…" and "As You Like It", "Twelfth Night" is sometimes described as a "joyous" comedy in contradistinction to more "problematic" comedies like "Measure for Measure" and "All's Well that Ends Well". It does, however, have its darker side; several characters, for example, have recently suffered bereavement, or believe themselves to have done so, and this production tends to stress the darkness underlying the play. The autumnal setting contributes to this feeling, as does the fact that most of the characters are seen dressed in black.

The dark overtones are particularly pronounced in the sub-plot involving Olivia's steward, Malvolio. He is sometimes played simply as a narrow- minded Puritan and his adversary Sir Toby as a jovial, lovable old man whose only concern is to have his "cakes and ale". For Nunn, however, matters are not so simple. Nigel Hawthorne's Malvolio- the one character for whom there is no happy ending- is an essentially tragic figure, a dignified and dedicated servant who is tricked into making a fool of himself by a gang of people who have taken an irrational dislike to him. His name is derived from the Italian for "ill will", yet its significance here may be that Malvolio is not so much the perpetrator of malice as the victim of the malice of others.

There is an excellent performance from Mel Smith, better known as a television comedian, as Sir Toby. Smith brings out both the nastiness and the sadness which lie at the heart of his character. Sir Toby is a man of wealth and noble family (he is Olivia's uncle) who has spent his whole life in feasting, drinking and womanising and who has a fondness for cruel practical jokes; besides his tricking of Malvolio he dupes his friend Andrew Aguecheek and "Cesario" into fighting a duel. (Both acquit themselves surprisingly well, given that one is really a woman and the other an arrant coward). Yet there is also an implied sadness about Smith's characterisation; Toby knows that his life has been a wasted one, but feels that it is too late to amend.

Besides Hawthorne and Smith there are too many good contributions to single them all out individually. I must, however, mention Stubbs, who is able to suggest both a male persona and the underlying woman, and Ben Kingsley as Olivia's jester Feste, whom he plays less as a clown than as a sardonic old philosopher, an eccentric but also a man gifted with penetrating insights into human life.

"Twelfth Night" is one of Shakespeare's best-known comedies, and like all well-known Shakespeare plays it has become very familiar in the theatre. A good director, however, whether in the theatre or on screen, will always be able to find something new to say about it, and that is what Nunn has done here. He and his cast have found new insights into this great play, enabling us to see it with new eyes. An excellent production. 9/10

Trevor Nunn's beautifully photographed and acted, deftly written film is one of the most enjoyable adaptations of a Shakespeare play ever made. Helena Bonham Carter is pitch perfect as the beautiful Olivia, who in "deep mourning" for her dead brother, falls in love with Cesario (who happens to be a woman named Viola dressed up as a man, wonderfully played by Imogen Stubbs, the only actress I've ever seen able to create both a charming Viola and a totally believable Cesario), meanwhile Viola falls for the Duke of fictional Illyria (the exquisite Toby Stephens) who is desperately in love with the Lady Olivia. Meanwhile, Viola's lost twin brother (Steven Mackintosh of "Gentlemen Don't Eat Poets", excellent again here) winds up in Illyria and adds to the confusion. Wonderful, layered support comes from Ben Kingsley playing Feste, Olivia's fool. The only flaw, perhaps, is the few minutes before the conclusion when everything seems to be coated with a thick gloss of sugar; the film comes through this unscathed. Trevor Nunn comes through with an exquisite Shakespeare film adaptation (which is a do or die task). A great showcase for the heavenly cast featuring some of the best performances ever by Bonham Carter (save "Wings of the Dove"), Kingsley (in his best supporting turn ever), novice Stubbs, and Stephens. A very worthwhile effort. Rent it, you won't be let down.

Slick Shakespeare adaptation, well acted and very humorous (in parts) in its telling. Naturally, there's always going to be some differences from stage to cinema. The film took advantage of this, of course, to avoid a "stage" feel. The perceptions, or rather the misperceptions, of people and motivations are well explored and portrayed. Ben Kingsley is a standout, for his interesting twist on the character Feste. In short, a good adaptation and film. Recommended.

In writing Twelfth Night (and the same goes for many other of his romantic comedies), Shakespeare showed that he was not only a genius at dark tragedy but also at light comedy. I saw a junior college production of this play which did live up to Shakespeare's intentions, which was in fact so funny I was falling off my chair.

Unfortunately, director Nunn will not allow a hilarious slapstick comedy to just be a hilarious slapstick comedy. Apparently he succumbed to the notion that everything Shakespearean has somehow to seem profound, which in this case results in an attempt to transfer this light, sparkling comedy, full of deliberately overdrawn characters and silly lines and pratfalls, into a brooding tragedy in which pompous ass Malvolio acts as if he were, or imagined himself to be, Hamlet caught in the wrong play, while clown Feste is misanthropic to the point of sadism. There is no suggestion of comic timing anywhere in this film!

It appears that once Nunn decided to insist on a modern-dress version, he adopted as his mentor the let's-portray-the-messed-up-dysfunctional-household school. This is stupid. A better mentor would have been a closer modern equivalent of what Shakespeare was doing in this play. Something like I Love Lucy or Amos 'n' Andy or The Honeymooners, in other words.

One thing that entirely puzzles me is: why the devil didn't Nunn exploit the particular advantages of the cinema in depicting this gender-bender story of a girl impersonating a look-alike boy? Why in sam hill didn't Nunn have a male actor who is skilled at female impersonation, or an actress skilled at impersonating males, play both roles on a split screen? (See, for the sort of impersonation I refer to, Vanessa Redgrave as the trans-sexual tennis player in Second Serve.) In other words: Why transform a stage play into a film at all, if you're not going to put the advantages of the cinema, as opposed to those of the stage, to work? Nunn's treatment of this play is not only a mangled interpretation, it's unimaginative.

Ben Kingsley is the only performer who does very much with his part, and what he does he does very well. His acting creates a very interesting character, and his interpretation of Feste is certainly consistent, but it receives no support whatsoever from the text.

This is, quite simply, the best production of a Shakespeare comedy ever filmed. The plot is delightfully absurd, the acting brilliant, the direction superb. It is the sort of comedy you can watch over and over again.