WHO is your favourite Shakespeare character? CHRISTINE CHAPMAN looks at two plays dealing with emotional struggle as the contest gathers pace.
THE poet Tennyson, grieving the loss of a beloved friend, wrote: “ ’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
This philosophical observation has provided an epiphany moment for many suffering the intense emotions connected with rejection.
It also sheds interesting light on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and King John, plays focusing on passion and emotional struggle in very different ways.
Twelfth Night, or What You Will, is Shakespeare’s only play with a double title. A sense of doubleness pervades this bitter-sweet comedy about loving, grieving and separated twins.
Shakespeare himself was the father of twins. Judith and Hamnet were baptised at Candlemas, February 2, 1585. Co-incidentally, February 2 was also the date of the first recorded performance of Twelfth Night.
As its title suggests, Twelfth Night was written for Epiphany, a festival celebrating the Wise Men recognising Christ as God’s son. Accordingly, the play explores the subject of adoration. Its alternative title, What You Will, hints at misrule.
Situations here are often not what they seem nor as characters would wish them to be.
Fittingly for a New Year play, Twelfth Night focuses on past experiences and new prospects, reminding us of the changing nature of relationships.
The play opens with a violent storm and three characters in emotional extremis. Ship-wrecked Viola, believing her twin-brother Sebastian drowned, dresses as a boy for safety; Countess Olivia, mourning the deaths of her father and brother, has rejected male company for years, while Duke Orsino wallows in unrequited love for Olivia.
Through them, we visit dark emotional places where most normal people would prefer not to go.
The plot of Twelfth Night is like a merry-go-round of love. When one character is on the up, the other is on the fall. Viola becomes Orsino’s page and falls in love with him; Orsino sends Viola, as Cesario, to woo Olivia, who unexpectedly falls in love with “him”.
Viola/Cesario rejects Olivia’s advances; Olivia meets Viola’s willing twin, Sebastian, and marries him instead. When fate re-unites the separated siblings, this struggle ends happily. Love in the comic sub-plot is far more bitter, however.
Malvolio, who over-reaches himself in love, is one of Shakespeare’s greatest comic creations.
A forged letter and Malvolio’s overweening self-belief make it easy for Toby Belch and Maria to persuade Malvolio that Olivia loves him. Mis-reading her question “Wilt thou go to bed, Malvolio?”, his romantic fate is sealed.
Love can make people do strange things. Proud Malvolio, smiling and preening, presents a painfully amusing picture. The emotional struggles in King John are very different. Shakespeare here explores men’s behaviour as they struggle for power. The strong, like the unhistorical Bastard of Faulconbridge, flourish, the weak are crushed along the way.
Written around the time of Hamnet’s death, King John dramatises a usurper losing his crown and a mother grieving the death of a son.
Constance of Brittany’s son, Arthur, is murdered on John’s command, preventing him claiming the throne. Her long lament is heart-breaking: “Grief fills the room up of my absent child/ Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me.”
Yet King John also suffers a hellish loss of love. Visibly diminished upon his mother’s death, he becomes no more than “a scribbled form, drawn with a pen/Upon a parchment”.
Loss may have broken hearts in King John, but could Twelfth Night’s adoring lovers inspire you to register a vote?
This week you could vote for...
TWELFTH NIGHT
Sir Tony Belch: Countess Olivia’s drunken uncle who knows how to party.
Malvolio: Po-faced steward to Olivia who’s tricked by Sir Toby and friends.
Maria: Lady-in-waiting in Olivia’s household.
Viola: Disguises herself as a boy, Cesario, and falls for Orsino, Duke of Illyria.
KING JOHN
King John: War breaks out after the French demand he hand over his throne to his nephew, Arthur.
Faulconbridge: Son of Sir Robert Faulconbridge and engaged in a land dispute with his half-brother, Philip the Bastard.
Lady Constance: Widow of John’s elder brother and mother of Arthur.
Vote for your favourite character
THE campaign to find the North East’s favourite Shakespeare character and play is being run by the Theatre Royal and The Journal. Your favourite character will be announced on April 23, Shakespeare’s birthday, and then a sculptor will be commissioned to cast him or her in bronze.
The sculpture will be installed at the Theatre Royal on April 23, 2012 in permanent homage to our greatest playwright.