mShakespeare April Fools Super Spoof 2010 parodizes in a wild *totally* unofficial MultiParody some of the memorable pop culture icons in 2009, while analogizing them to characters from the Metaverse Shakespeare Company’s current open-ended run of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Act 2.

Scene 1: Edward is Jacob afore Illyria… with Antonio played by Bella Swan as “Bella Antonio” and Sebastian played by Edward Cullen as “Edward Sebastian” — who confuses Bella by admitting his name wasn’t Rodorigo or Edward, but is actually Jacob, and then leaves her to wander like a lost vampire in Illyria. In this New Moon prologue spin-off, Bella goes after him!
Scene 2: AVATAR @ Olivia’s… with Malvolio played by the Na’vi Neytiri and Viola, the envoy, played by Jake Sully… in SL 3D!!! zOMG!™
Scene 3: Southpark Shakespeare Setup… with Sir Toby Belch played by Stan Marsh as “Sir Toby Stan”; Feste played by Butters Stotch as “Feste Butters”; Maria played by Shelley Marsh as “Shelley Maria”; Malvolio played by Eric Cartman as “Cartman Malvolio”; and Sir Andrew Aguecheek played by Kenny McCormick as “Sir Kenny Andrew”
Scene 4: New Moon in Bella’s Court… with Orsino played by Bella as, who has somehow managed to become duke of Illyria in her ill-begotten pursuit of the merely extravagant Edward… or, perchance, Viola played by Edward as “Edola”
Scene 5: Southpark Shakespearean Idol… with cast as in Scene 3, but this time, our trout farts and swears and lapses from modern vernacular into Shakespearean when he steps into light of the haunted Shakespearean Idol platform…

Free show; seating is first come first to squat.
Be there early! Thursday, April 1 @ 5 PM at the SL Globe Theatre

P.S. The Na’vi Neytiri, Human Jake Sully, and all Southpark avatars shown in the poster above will be given away for free at the event! Come for the show, go home with memorable freebies!

Shakespeare, Second Life—The Metaverse Shakespeare Company (MSC), formerly SL Shakespeare Company (SLSC), next Tuesday will open its long-awaited 2010 Main Canon production of Twelfth Night, Act 2—“As you will it!” in an open-ended run to occur every Tuesday at 6 PM SLT (PT), and every Sunday at 1 PM SLT (PT). Set to occur at the 4-sim SL Globe Theatre (http://visit.mshakespeare.com) in the virtual world of Second Life—this live theatrical performance, available anywhere with an Internet connection, continues the troupe’s 2009 production of Twelfth Night, Act 1—but, with a fresher, riper take, and its own amalgam of the year’s innovations in virtual theatre.

See the full PR here for further details.

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.