So Twelfth Night ends with that quasi magical resolution. The arrival of the twin, Viola's twin Sebastian married Olivia, Olivia think she's married to Cesario, but she's married the brother. So we get the immediate resolution, the marriage in fact, we have more than one marriage, we had three marriages. We got Toby and Maria, we got Orsino gesturing to the moment that when Cesario gets his women's weaves, women's clothes back then they'll get married too. This is a three for one, you get a super-duper comedy, but as we were saying in earlier discussion, Shakespeare is also playing with the conventions of comedy, there's a tragic awareness that's just at the edges of the play and that really, I think is foregrounded in the Malvolio subplot and so we have the weddings and we have the happy resolutions. We have the quasi miracle, a wonder, that wonderful, magical reunion of Viola and Sebastian, but that's all, it seems to be disrupted because we also have the resolution of the Malvolio plot, where Malvolio finds out that he's been had, that this letter he found was counterfeit, that it was not from Olivia. In the climactic scene, Malvolio states his case and this character Fabian who shows up and back to basically says, he explains, it was a practical joke, just take it in the spirit that was offered, nobody needs to get hurt, nobody needs to be punished here, it was a good joke, wasn't it Malvolio? Olivia says, "Alas, poor fool, how they have baffled thee." Feste comes in again, there is no more exposition needed, Feste is getting in a last dig. "Why, some are born great, some achieved greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." I was one, sir, in this interlude, one Sir Topas, sir, but that's all one. "By the Lord, Fool, I am not mad," but do you remember, "Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal, an you smile not, he's gagged" This was Malvolio insult towards Feste. Feste, the last line of this speech, "And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges." I love that line because I think it tells us, it's surprising, it's shocking coming from Feste, "And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges." What's happening with Feste here? So part of what he's doing is bringing us back to that horrible moment where they're all in the dark room and she's playing the role of Sir Topas, the priest, and he's bringing it back ground or remind Malvolio of it. Of course, this makes us empathize with Malvolio because we can imagine what it would be like to be in the dark room. But we also probably are thinking about the fact that we were sitting there watching this happen and may well have been laughing at the periods Malvolio who's being tortured in the room. So Feste brings all of that back around again, "Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges." Malvolio response, "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you," and he exits. So it's this moment of pain from Malvolio, I think he is the line there for talking about comedies and then coupling off. He's alone, he exits on his own, and then also he really is a victim here, I think as you all underscore, I think that the [inaudible]. Then that question of course, that I've heard you talked about before David, "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you." What does it mean to talk about the pack? Who's the pack? So Malvolio's line, the color of Shakespeare Festival Production. I'm sorry, we don't have an image of this but it really foregrounded the way in which Malvolio was treated as a madman. He's brought onto stage in basically in a little cage, he's carried in a cage. Big lobster trap. Yeah. At that point for me, it's like that's not funny, Okay. However, nauseous or condescending Malvolio is, that you really pushed on that and so. That's the kid that gets thrown into the locker, locked in at school. Feste is just continuing, I think you're right, he's continuing the punishment here, "Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges," and then Malvolio answered, "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you," there is a poignancy and who is the you in there? Who is the you? In the pack of you? Yeah. I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you. Everyone on stage. Yeah. We're now in Act 5, Shakespeare's Act 5. It's just one scene and it's 30 pages long. What we found, and I'm only saying in our production not in all of them, but Randy who played Feste. We talked about it endlessly. Well, maybe Feste is more on this person's side or maybe Feste feels in his heart trying to, an Randy by the time he got to opening night said, any path you go down trying to understand Feste is a dead end for him. He said, "I just have to accept that he's just present. " That's it, and he's present in all of these scenes and he's put to use like a billiard ball he's pushed into things and things happen. That seems to make the most sense for now. Randy is also another guard theater artist and he comes from outside the world of Shakespeare that we work in every day, which is great as well for that character. When we come to the end there, that line for me at least what we found the whirling gig of time is like, I'm just a participant in this. You brought this all on yourself, the guards and their millstones will grind away as they see fit. But it is interesting that he chooses the word brings in his revenges and Malvolio bounces off that word. It's almost as if there's the logic of revenge is you harmed me, I'm going to harm you. Yes, what goes around, comes around, it's worldly gig? I think in a way, when I'm teaching this, it will have come to this play after reading histories. Shakespeare's vision of history is a very tragic vision. It's a cycle. It's recursive cycle, just the violence never goes away. It's very hard to break it takes the magical resolution later in Shakespeare's career to imagine the possibility that harming someone could be forgiven. Even then it's a question but I think here in that one line, it's like this is a tragic sense that even in the way really played Feste was for the wisdom figure. His, Feste, was the wise, the person who has a view of the world. Is he older? Yes. Then almost everybody else. Yes. Which I think is right. That version can be intellectual clown that Shakespeare has but even Feste gets sucked in too. Yes. He is very much okay about it. In our world, he was, if you insist. I think if you follow Catherine's observation earlier, he's a pay for service guy. Right. Yes. Yes. He's going to go with wherever the money is. If we want to put on this practical job, sure. I get paid, great. I think that does explain why he does that, is because he can't afford his moral through line, that doesn't pay the bills, that doesn't make it. He can't eat. Right. The insult he remembers is an insult to his art. So key ceases remembers when Malvolio said, "Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal?" You smile a lot, he's gagged. So basically saying guys, he's got no talent. It stuck. He remembers it, because to me Feste and Malvolio are very different people but the thing they have in common is that they want revenge. Yes. They remember the insults and they want payback. Then after that very heated exchange, probably the one person who should not speak is the Duke. He says, " Go after him," and everybody is like, "You don't know anything." That how hollow that is. After this a little tense exchange, revenge, and then Mr. no brain, "Somebody run after him." Well, there's the reality that again, I think Shakespeare is actually just saying, here's this magical resolution, all the marriages, all the happiness this formulate gets the comedy and he's disrupting it and the reality is that, is this weird plot detail, I propose nothing but Malvolio has a suit against the Captain who saved Viola, and the captain has Viola's cloths. So Viola can't dress back from Cesario and so in away and or seen us as I'll marry when you have your women's clothes. In a way, it's another way that Shakespeare's disrupting that resolution. His testimonies like he gifts the player. He's both giving, he's both satisfying the comedic genre, the demands of the comedic genre. He is like checking the boxes, but he's putting pressure [inaudible] He's also asking what kind of world is this really? Can the magic resolution resolved the antagonism and all the tensions? I think that you can play it further. This is an imperfect world and an imperfect resolution. There is a happy ending for two couples on stage. A happy ending for a couple we don't see anymore. Toby and Maria have moved on, but it's not a happy ending for Malvolio or for Sir. Andrew or for Antonio. He has to see his love, Sebastian, be married off. So to Sir. Andrew has to see his love get married off. Malvolio is completely ruined. So we're left in this broken world and will make do. Even though one of the happy marriages, Maria and Toby, I'm not sure about that one. Yeah. Yeah. Right. He has to deal with [inaudible]. Yeah. How is that going to go? Yeah. They're going to deal with alcohol, and he's got a big head wound. Yeah. He says, "It's all going to be fine now, I'm fine now," really? Yes. Act 6, I don't think so. I know the play really does leave you wanting more. He said something horrible to Andrew. Yeah. Yeah. That's the only thing more that didn't faced go [inaudible] Yeah. Yeah. Even more money. Yes, right. Maria really gets what Malvolio wanted. She marries into the family, but as you say Rachel, I think it's an ambivalent and achievement, not quite certain what that means. Yeah. We're at a moment in Shakespeare's career is, we don't know, but the best we can reconstruct, he has written Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida is another, we're not even having evidence that was performed, but it's very dyspeptic comedy. Yeah [inaudible]. Yeah. Measure for measure. What's coming after this week? [inaudible] As You Like It and All's Well, or yet to be [inaudible]. All's Well, is on the rise just another. Really grimed comedy. Right, and then he stops writing. Yeah. So it say's if he's pressing up against the limits of. Yeah, getting tired of the forum. Yeah. Really moving into transition to have the greatest tragic [inaudible] with his career. For me, this ending is so chancy. It's guaranteed only by the preceding scene where Sebastian comes in and says, "Well, here is this woman offered to marry me, and either she's crazy or I am." She doesn't seem crazy, at least everybody treats her as if she's saying, I don't think I'm crazy, but well, either of us could be crazy well, I'll just go with it. I'm going to with it. I'm going to go with it. That heedless acceptance is the only thing that's going to get you through this ending. I love it. When the twins show up, I think Olivia says, "So which one is Sebastian?" Yes, right. It's an apple cleft in tool,l don't know which one is which. Yeah. Yeah. The craziness has got already setup before we get to this. I don't know what's happening. Well, I think it's a resolution that's also a known resolution that's both performing and questioning at the same time, which is actually brilliance to this play. Well, and the audience becomes complicit throughout, we have touched on that already. But there is something thrilling about that statement. You said that Malvolio is the character that really sticks with people, what's he going to do? That as much as we can say well, revenge, you should really break the cycle, it's compelling. Something to that too is the reason that it keeps happening is that it's compelling and we want to know what the response is going to be. I really wish you want us equal in this play. [inaudible]. Up to the finance. I think that's another way to read that line too, which he is certainly speaking. The way it was played in the summer is he doesn't even look at the characters on the stage, that he's playing it with a sense of deep humiliation. But I think it's also because the actor is turning to the audience, that he's saying a lie to the audience. I think that in that word pack, "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you." There is another theory about assignment from Malvolio's perspective, "People are not civilized." "They are wolves." Yeah, "They are wolves." All have been laughing at him. Yeah. So it leaves the sense of, you walk out of the theater satisfied because that was a great comedy, everything is verbal, misunderstandings, and mistaken identities in linguistic play and just cleverness, but also a sense of maybe discomfort almost about thinking about the antagonisms that are just under the surface of polite society of noble society. A wolfish reality, which is the reality of the histories and the reality of the tragedies.
