Malvolio: What employment have we here? Scene 5

This Act 2 poster is based on an unedited SL snapshot of Sir Toby Belch in the Metaverse Shakespeare Company’s design of the set for Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 5: Olivia’s Garden.

This Act 2 poster is based on an unedited SL snapshot of Feste the Fool in the Metaverse Shakespeare Company’s design of the set for Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 4: Orsino’s Court - Mezzanine.

A2S1, A2S2, A2S4

A2S5

A2S3 Settings:

The Metaverse Shakespeare Company (MSC) welcomes your participation in our experimental try-out of “Crowdsourced Interactive Set Design” — where you get to help decorate our sets by sending in your graffiti message or flyer/poster idea for the City Wall of Illyria in the Act 2, Scene 1 set. The walls will be updated on Fridays with your new wall adornments.

Here’s the wall (bare, and in need of your messages!):

and… Send in your graffiti messages and flyer ideas as comments to this thread–below:

The Metaverse Shakespeare’s long-awaited open-ended run of Twelfth Night: Act 2 opens on Tuesday, March 2. The performances will occur Sundays at 1 PM SLT (PT) and Tuesdays at 6 PM SLT (PT). To help sponsor the event, and to invite you to take part in this historic event, we are offering advertisement space in our play program!This is your chance to grab an ad or special message space in our programme booklet to be distributed both at the show, to various inworld groups, and also on our blog and website! Below is an example of a web-based programme booklet:

OEP1: Twelfth Night, Act 1 - 2009 Open Ended Run (pdf 5 MB) or Issuu

Our four-sim venue with 3-sim audience seating is generally packed with ~300 avatars for each show in our main Shakespearean repertoire. The SL Globe Theatre is in Showcases/popular places and receives a fair amount of natural traffic on non-event days. Our website receives hundreds of thousands of views per month. We’re #1 on a Google search on several keywords for our main repertoire - here are just some examples: Twelfth Night open ended run, Twelfth Night director’s interpretation, Twelfth Night props, private performances, .

Please click here for more details on ordering an ad–or that ultimate message to that special someone!

Our past programme booklets are posted at http://programmes.mshakespeare.com

In Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 4, in response’s to Orsino’s arrogant assertions that a woman’s love cannot be as great as the love of a man’s, Viola tries conveying the unrequited love a woman might have for a man. The mention of “patience on a monument” deserves some visual cues, so I’d zoom in directly on the line that mentions this motif in context (you can see the rest of my analysis of Viola’s lines to Orsino in Scene 4 here).

A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?

The mention of “patience on a monument” seems as out of place as the “worm i’the bud”, so it seems natural that Viola’s character might have “taken inspiration” via an item on the set.

“Patience on a Monument” is often a sculpture on the tombs of kings, most famously seen in Louis XII’s tomb (as noted in Heckscher, William S. “Shakespeare in His Relationship to the Visual Arts: A Study in Paradox”. Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama. 13-14 (1970-71). Eds. Schoenbaum, S. pp 40). The two images cited here both show a seated woman in “patient grief” (for the lack of a better phrase). A woman chained, whether to a windowsill (to pine forever, for the rest of her life), or a woman chained to a pole–as more poignantly shown in that St. Denis tomb of Louis XII’s, whose figure is also turned in a pose that shows both strain from and desire to leave this post, and yet, she cannot.

More imagery of Louis XII’s tomb is available here and here and here and here, specifically on that sculpture of the cardinal virtue of Patience here and here. A closeup showing sculpture texture is here.

As mentioned in my director’s notes, it might be because the Duke has a statue reminiscent of such imagery, in his court. Or, it might be because Viola had just sauntered through Olivia’s Garden, as emissary to Olivia from Orsiino (and back again)–having seen the stylized “guardian sculpture” on the grave of Olivia’s late brother.

The Metaverse Shakespeare Company is seeking silent actors (actors with non-speaking roles) to perform in its upcoming open-ended production of Twelfth Night: Act 2. The show opens on March 2, and runs every Sundays at 1 PM SLT, and Tuesdays at 6 PM SLT at the SL Globe Theatre.

Silent actor benefits include:

• experience and credit in a professional theatrical production,
• avatar skin, eyes, clothing, and props, and
• a small stipend.

Interested actors should be able to commit to at least one (if not both) show dates each week, indefinitely until May. There is a mandatory rehearsal at 11 am SLT on Saturday, Feb 27th at the LM above.

Please post your SL name to the blog comment area below, if you’d like to participate. Be sure to be online at the mandatory rehearsal time above!

We open March 2 @ 6PM SL Time!

Contact Ina Centaur for further information.

M.O.A.I. doth sway my life…

Show opens 6 PM SLT (PST) on Tuesday, March 2.

Open-Ended run will be every Tuesdays @ 6 PM, and Sundays @ 1 PM. SLT “SL Time” — PST until March 14, after which, the time becomes PDT.

Stay tuned for updates, and yet more playbills.

Drop by the SL Globe Theatre to grab your own sPoster, the Metaverse Shakespeare Company’s magical instantly-updating playbill that will always show our latest poster and give you message of our next event–with every click.