This is Part III of several Director’s Notes blog entries on Twelfth Night: Act 2, Scene 5.

The Sophy refers to the Shah of Persia, who is plentiful rich, and might be one of the few people the Elizabethans all know who can afford to “pay a pension of thousands” (as opposed to trade in buildings and land, as the budget-cut English monarchy had been resorting to. read: real payment!). Toby’s totally delighted, and Andrew, too (though, he just echos Toby):

Fabian: I will not give my part of this sport for a pension of thousands to be paid from the Sophy.
Toby: I could marry this wench for this device.
Andrew: So could I too.
Toby: And ask no other dowry with her, but such another jest.
Andrew: Nor I neither.

Maria returns — after the spectacle with the tree guys behind the boxtree, and Malvolio giving his ego-solo.

Fabian seems the only one who still has his wits about him. Toby and Andrew are head over heels in awe of Maria, Toby even asking if Maria would let him kiss her foot, or become her slave:

Fabian: Here comes my noble gull catcher.
Toby: Wilt thou let thy foot o’my neck?
Andrew: Or o’mine either?
Toby: Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip, and become thy bondslave?
Andrew: I’faith, or I either?

Toby continues speculating on Malvolio, saying that if Malvolio is so deep in his delusions, he’d go crazy when he finds the truth. Maria, perhaps still holding her breath on whether it’d worked, finally asks the direct question. Toby assures her, that it’s worked precisely and perfectly:

Toby: Why, thou hast put him in such a dream, that when the image of it leaves him, he must run mad.
Maria: Nay but say true, do’s it work upon him?
Toby: Like Aqua vitae with a Midwife.

Maria, now assured of how badly Malvolio’s fallen, reveals the full evilness of her plan:

Maria: If you will then see the fruits of the sport, mark his first approach before my Lady: he will come to her in yellow stockings, and ’tis a colour she abhors, and cross garter’d, a fashion she detests: and he will smile upon her, which will now be so unsuitable to her disposition, being addicted to a melancholy, as she is, that it cannot but turn him into a notable contempt: if you will see it follow me.

Toby is now giddiy with wild abandon, raging about going to the gates of hell. The trio follow her out, with Andrew loitering just slightly behind, still confused, but giving the last word:

Toby: To the gates of Tarter, thou most excellent devil of wit.
Andrew: I’ll make one too.

Tags: Andrew, Fabian, Maria, Toby

This is Part II of several Director’s Notes blog entries on Twelfth Night: Act 2, Scene 5.

This scene is like to a sort of “play within a play,” although it’s a “real event” within the world of this play–but, for this spectacle, Malvolio’s the actor, and the other, willing and comment-eager audience.

Malvolio enters–beautifully, with a prancing shadow AO, and thinking that Maria fancies him:

Malvolio: ‘Tis but Fortune, all is fortune. Maria once told me she did affect me, and I have heard herself come thus near, that, should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides she view me with a more exalted respect than anyone else that follows her. What should I think on’t?

Toby betrays his first explicit sign of affinity towards Maria–jealousy that Malvolio would view Maria suchly:

Toby: Here’s an overweening rogue.

I imagine Toby might actually draw sword (or, in our “archetypal production“, a historical pistol).

Fabian seems to be the guy who will maintain peace among the trio; he tells Toby to chill:

Fabian: Oh peace: Contemplation makes a rare Turkey Cock of him, how he lets under his advanc’d plumes.

Andrew, displays his characteristic valor (which, in later scenes, we’d find is mere bravado–words, words, words but he’s really a chicken inside):

Andrew: Slight, I could so beat the Rogue.

Of course, when Andrew (the “lesser knight”) joins in the violence-threats, Toby’s the one who goes, “Calm down!” (but, perhaps, Andrew is also pulling for a grab at Toby’s pistol):

Toby: Peace I say.

Even before getting that letter, it seem as if Malvolio is set for this perfect duping–he’s already deep in that booby-trap of unwarranted arrogance:

Malvolio: To be Count Malvolio.

I imagine Toby is holding the gun *away* from Andrew, and Andrew is insistent that he shoots:

Toby: Ah, Rogue.
Andrew: Pistol him, pistol him!

Toby might even put his pistol away (or get a better, more concentrated aim at Malvolio), as he tells Andrew to shut up:

Toby: Peace, peace.

Malvolio has some sort of class-crossing epiphany, as he cites the marriage of the “Lady of the Strachys” with a mere yeoman (Lady of the Starchys was a prominent patron of the Blackfriars Theatre, and she married the yeoman wardrobes-keeper of the Blackfriars):

Malvolio: There is example for’t: The Lady of the Strachy, married the yeoman of the wardrobe.

Andrew, apparently, greatly disapproves of such class-crossings, curses to Jezebel, that yeoman of the wardrobe:

Andrew: Fie on him, Jezabel.

At this point, it becomes evident that the boxtree-hidden trio’s conversation isn’t just an aside, but actually a part of the script–Fabian cues in Malvolio’s full immersion in delusion:

Fabian: O peace, now he’s deeply in: look how imagination blows him.
Malvolio: Having been three months married to her, fitting in my state.

Elizabethan-pistols were not known for accuracy, so I suppose slingshots and such are preferred for precision:

Toby: O for a stone-bow to hit him in the eye.

For a Puritan, Malvolio certainly doesn’t believe in thriftiness or even celibacy (then again, maybe he means to only tuck his lady in):

Malvolio: Calling my Officers about me, in my branch’d Velvet gown: having come from a daybed, where I have left Olivia sleeping.

Malvolio would be turned, away from the boxtree. Toby might even rise up, losing cover of the box-tree, completely outraged, gun drawn and ready to shoot:

Toby: Fire and Brimstone!

Tortured, Fabian would pull Toby back down to hiding:

Fabian: Oh peace, peace.

Fabian braces for the next line, his arms, the shackles holding the furious Toby down:

Malvolio: And then to have the humor of state: and after a demure travaile of regard: telling them I know my place, as I would they should do theirs: to ask for my kinsman Toby.
Toby: Bolts and shackles.

Fabian, perhaps just slightly fearful that he might be caught again, prays:

Fabian: Oh peace, peace, peace, now, now.

Malvolio is kind of quintessentially prissy-at-heart–he’d have seven people go after Toby, while Malvolio himself frowns and dallies, winding up his watch or playing with some other object of amusement:

Malvolio: Seven of my people with an obedient start make out for him: I frown the while, and perchance wind up my watch, or play with my–some rich Jewell: Toby approaches; curtsies to me.

Toby, fighting in Fabian’s stranglehold:

Toby: Shall this fellow live?

According to Penguin (Mahood), Fabian basically says the era-equivalent of “Wild horses wouldn’t draw it out of me”–with chariots (cars):

Fabian: Though our silence be drawn from us with cars, yet peace.

You can almost see it–Malvolio smiling that annoying expression (as seen in an upcoming OEP2 playbill), fading to an evil expression (or, see the raw snapshot of our current steward juxtaposed next to a sinister-ish “Count Malvolio”). And, hearing that, Toby’s fist has just broken free of Fabian’s stranglehold:

Malvolio: I extend my hand to him thus: quenching my familiar smile with an austere regard of control–
Toby: And do’s not Toby take you a blow o’the lips, then?

Malvolio seems to really lose it here, that light touch with reality, “By virtue of my luck of having become married to your niece, I now have the right to say this to you.”

Malvolio: Saying, “Cousin Toby, my Fortunes having cast me on your Niece, give me this prerogative of speech.”

I imagine Fabian, completely bewildered by this unexpected wildness, loses his hold on Toby. Toby is also astounded by Malvolio’s great leap of faith–all that power, from a single marriage:

Toby: What, what?

Malvolio, facing away from the boxtree, again:

Malvolio: “You must amend your drunkenness.”

Toby gets up to try to take a swing at Malvolio; Fabian pulls him back down, trying to reason with him:

Toby: Out scab!
Fabian: Nay patience, or we break the sinews of our plot?

Malvolio waxes on the grandiose, “the treasure of Sir Toby’s time”:

Malvolio: “Besides you waste the treasure of your time, with a foolish knight.”

This bit is just classic funny to me:

Andrew: That’s me, I warrant you.
Malvolio: “One Sir Andrew–”
Andrew: I knew ’twas I, for many do call me fool.

Finally, Malvolio looks down–perhaps at his shadow–to spot the letter, picks it up:

Malvolio: What employment have we here?

The trio hiding behind the boxtree are really a knavish audience, each taking turns poking at the other to “shut up”, while Fabian takes his glory in introducing the cues:

Fabian: Now is the Woodcock near the gin.
Toby: Oh peace, and the spirit of humors intimate reading aloud to him.

I imagine that Malvolio has already torn the envelope open by now (in haste, as if a rowdy birthday boy, throwing the envelope on the ground), in order to see the full range of letters (her C’s, U’s, and T’s–Elizabethan slang for vagina, or cunt sans n, clearly echos Malvolio’s subconscious licentiousness):

Malvolio: By my life this is my Lady’s hand: these be her very C’s, her U’s, and her T’s, and thus makes she her great P’s. It is in contempt of question her hand.

Andrew, always the odd person out in double entendres:

Andrew: Her C’s, her U’s, and her T’s: why that?

Malvolio is reading the letter’s opening line carefully. And then he goes back to the envelope, notices the wax, announces that he will call the authenticity of the letter “by your leave wax”. Carefully, he bends down to look at the envelope, sees the imprint of Lucrece–takes that as the affirmation to be from her lady:

Malvolio: “To the unknown belov’d, this, and my good Wishes” — Her very Phrases… By your leave wax. Soft, and the impressure her Lucrece, with which she uses to seal: t’is my Lady - to whom should this be?

Fabian sounds almost impertinent, but since Orsino has mentioned liver in the context of infatuation several times earlier, Fabian might deliver this line with both humor and vigor:

Fabian: This wins him, Liver and all.

Malvolio reads the opening riddle of the letter (a rather coarse rhyme that just seems so ridiculous — seems more fit if uttered by a high-pitched echoing female voice):

Malvolio:
“Jove knows I love,
But who?
Lips, do not move;
No man must know.“

Delightfully, Malvolio continues thinking aloud:

Malvolio: “No man must know.” What follows? The numbers alter’d: “No man must know,” If this should be thee, Malvolio?

In jest, Toby wonders along with Malvolio:

Toby: Marry, hang thee brock.

In The Rape of Lucrece, Lucrece dagger-kills herself (due to shame, and such romantic/era reasoning), after being raped (albeit by royalty); her death galvanized her people to fight for the Republic of Rome. The cryptic message in this letter thus refers to how the supposed-writer’s heart is stabbed “with bloodless stroke”, as if by a self-imposed knife (”a Lucrece knife”), by its silent yearning, for M.O.A.I., which “doth sway her life”:

Malvolio:
“I may command where I adore,
But silence, like a Lucrece knife:
With bloodless stroke
My heart doth grow,
M.O.A.I. doth sway my life.“

Fabian, always, the avid commentator:

Fabian: A fustian riddle.

Toby’s got it:

Toby: Excellent Wench, say I!

Malvolio closes in precisely on the bait:

Malvolio: “M.O.A.I. doth sway my life.” Nay but first let me see, let me see, let me see.

Fabian and Toby exchange commentator jests:

Fabian: What dish o’ poison has she dreft him?
Toby: And with what wing the Stallion checks at it?

Malvolio interprets the first line of the “fustian riddle” to be “I command the man whom I love”, implying that he must be one of her servants. He thinks that’s obvious, or “evident to any formal capacity.” There’s no ambiguity (”not dark”) in this, “there is no obstruction in this.” And then he goes to the end of the letter, the acronym, that “alphabetical position”–he asks himself if he could read that as something that resembles himself?

Malvolio: “I may command, where I adore.” Why she may command me: I serve her, she is my Lady. Why this is evident to any formal capacity. There is no obstruction in this! And the end: What should that Alphabetical position portend… if I could make that resemble something in me? Softly, “M.O.A.I.”

Toby thinks Malvolio’s lost the bait–Fabian, though, thinks the bait can’t be missed, it smells “as rank as a Fox”:

Toby: O, aye, make up that, he is now at a cold scent.
Fabian: Sowter will cry upon’t for all this, though it be as rank as a Fox.

And, magic!:

Malvolio: “M. Malvolio, M.” — Why that begins my name.

Almost as if he’d just placed a verbal bet on this bear of a Mal:

Fabian: Did I not say he would work it out, the Cur is excellent at faults.

Malvolio: “M.” But then there is no consonancy in the sequel that suffers under probation: “A.” should follow, but “O.” does.

The commentators seem to join him in deduction, though Malvolio doesn’t hear them:

Fabian: And O shall end, I hope.
Toby: Aye, or I’ll cudgel him, and make him cry O.
Malvolio: And then “I” comes behind.
Fabian: Aye, and you had an “I” behind you, you might see more detraction at your heels, than Fortunes before you.

Fabian puns on “eye” and “I”, almost as he wishes the trio to be given away, to be “credited”.

Malvolio then gives that famous MOAI reading (which is surprisingly understandable to a modern audience even without further interpretation), following its directions as-if-hypnotized (taking a “spin” upon reading “revolve”). The letter deviously builds up on his aspirations, as well as his current want-to-do-list, and even ends with a threat that if he doesn’t do otherwise, he’d stay a steward, “the fellow of servants”:

Malvolio: M.O.A.I. This simulation is not as the former: and yet to crush this a little, it would bow to me, for every one of these Letters are in my name. Soft, here follows prose: “If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars, I am above thee, but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em. Thy fates open their hands; let thy blood and spirit embrace them, and to inure thyself to what thou art like to be — cast thy humble slough, and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants: Let thy tongue tang arguments of state; put thyself into the trick of singularity. She thus advises thee, that sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wish’d to see thee ever cross garter’d: I say remember. Go to, thou art made if thou desir’st to be so: If not, let me see thee a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to touch Fortune’s fingers. Farewell, she that would alter services with thee, that fortunate unhappy.”

Malvolio’s reaction is the best that can be had–he even admits he’d be “point-device”, i.e., the very man described in the letter, to perfection:

Malvolio: Daylight and champaign discovers not more! This is open… I will be proud, I will read politic Authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-device, the very man. I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade me; for every reason excites to this, that my Lady loves me. She did commend my yellow stockings of late, she did praise my legs being crossgarter’d, and in this she manifests herself to my love, and with a kind of iniuntion drives me to these habits of her liking. I thank my stars, I am happy: I will be strange, stour, in yellow stockings, and cross Garter’d, even with the swiftness of putting on. Jove, and my stars be praised. Here is yet a postscript. “Thou canst not choose but know who I am. If thou entertainst my love, let it appear in thy smiling–thy smiles become thee well. Therefore in my presence still smile, dear my sweet, I prithee.” Jove, I thank thee, I will smile, I will do everything that thou wilt have me.

Already starting to smile, Malvolio exits.

It’s curious to note that Malvolio’s “inner self” seems completely removed from his outer persona of the goody-Puritan; Malvolio’s malady is that of the hypocrisy of schisms–if he truly believes in the principles he tries to act, he wouldn’t have been the victim (he wouldn’t have taken the bait!–would have reported this letter direct to Olivia, caused a few raised eyebrows, and that’s all). But then, maybe it’s fundamental human nature that “Puritan-types” are just an act, and so it’s inevitable that Malvolio falls for this trick.

Tags: "Count Malvolio", Andrew, Blackfriars, Fabian, Lucrece, Malvolio, Toby

Act 2, Scene 5, set in Olivia’s Garden, is the famous “M.O.A.I.” scene where Maria shows her wiles, and Malvolio betrays his not-so-puritanical ego. This is Part I of several Director’s Notes blog entries on Twelfth Night: Act 2, Scene 5.

Curiously, Feste completely skips this scene, perhaps because the old fool is more accustomed to nocturnal hours (when there’s likelier to be sixpence for his songs), or is just generally only haphazardly present (thus warranting Maria’s reprimanding words in the brief exchange between Feste and Maria in the opening of Act 1, Scene 5)–anyway, instead of Feste, we have Fabian, a gentleman servant of Olivia’s, with a penchant for bear-baiting (and, who has a grudge towards Malvolio, for getting him in trouble for staging a bear-baiting in Olivia’s garden). Fabian opens Scene 5 with an era-joke about being “boil’d to death by Melancholy (thought by era “medical science” to be a cold humour)”:

Toby: Come thy ways, Signior Fabian.
Fabian: Nah, I’ll come: if I lose a scruple of this sport, let me be boil’d to death with Melancholy.
Toby: Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly Rascally sheep-biter, come by some notable shame?

Then again, perhaps Feste isn’t present in this scene is due to his intuitive sense of tact (Shakespeare’s fools always seem to have that extra bit of wisdom, quintessentially lacking in his star characters)–it’s a scene where the perpetrators could very-well be caught in their deed to render some “notable shame” to their common enemy.

Fabian: I would exult man: you know he brought me out of favour with my Lady, about a Bear-baiting here.

Toby: To anger him we’ll have the Bear again, and we will fool him black and blue, shall we not, Sir Andrew?

Andrew: And we do not, it is pity of our lives.

Like the others, Fabian’s here, having been slighted by Malvolio. Malvolio tattled on Fabian for holding a bear-baiting session in Olivia’s garden (this is rather something *no one wants!* in their backyard — aside from the damage from the animal slaughter, there’d be massive cleanup from the refuse left by the raucous audience such events draw–completely unseemly!); this suggests that Olivia’s garden is large, and that she might be something of a menagerie. (Our OEP2 set will contain quite a few animals.)

Toby seems more feisty and violent than usual, alluding to beating Malvolio “black and blue” after just a few words, and even calling Maria, his “Metal of India (gold)”, a villain (though this might be a term of endearment of sorts).

Maria enters the garden, perhaps breathless, Malvolio being so close behind her:

Toby: Here comes the little villain: how now, my Metal of India?
Maria: Get ye all three into the box tree!

The three men duck behind the boxtree, while Maria throws the letter, for the “trout that must be caught with tickling”:

Maria: Malvolio’s coming down this walk; he has been yonder i’the Sun practicing behavior to his own shadow this half hour. Observe him for the love of Mockery: for I know this Letter will make a contemplate Idiot of him. Close, in the name of jesting, lye thou there! For here comes the Trout, that must be caught with tickling.

Maria, curiously, leaves. (Perhaps this task of tricking a steward is too coarse for a lady, or Maria would rather not be present to “jinx her plot”, or maybe Shakespeare anticipated emergency doubling’s.)

Tags: Andrew, Fabian, Maria, Toby

This is Part E of the director’s commentary on Twelfth Night Act 2, Scene 3. (A | B | C | D | E)

Toby refers to Maria as Penthesilea, the Queen of the Amazons, for the scope of her scheme, and in jest, for her size.

Toby: Good night, Penthesilea.

Toby and Andrew then say some good words of her, and Toby finds wonder in that Maria adores him:

Andrew: Before me, she’s a good wench.
Toby: She’s a beagle true bred, and one that adores me: what o’that.

Pensively, Andrew states the truth (though he’s here on business to woo Olivia, he’s hardly adored):

Andrew: I was ador’d once too.

Toby changes the topic, to more immediate concerns:

Toby: Let’s to bed, knight: Thou hadst need send for more money.

Though inebriated, Andrew still has some of his wits about him:

Andrew: If I cannot recover your Niece, I am foul way out.

Toby gives the rich man’s son an easy solution–send for more money, and things will all work out in the end:

Toby: Send for money knight, if thou hast her not i’th end, call me Cut.

Andrew, galvanized by Toby’s assurance, declares:

Andrew: If I do not, never trust me, take it how you will.

Not wishing Andrew to be off on his own to think otherwise, he shepherds his friend back to the tavern:

Toby: Come, come, I’ll go burn some Sack, ’tis too late to go to bed now: Come knight, come knight.

Tags: Andrew, Scene 3, Toby

This is Part D of the director’s commentary on Twelfth Night Act 2, Scene 3. (A | B | C | D | E)

It’s interesting that Andrew’s the first one who starts the discussion of possible plots to get back at Malvolio, and being a knave knight, he suggests that they duel-cuckold the old Steward:

Andrew: T’were as good a deed as to drink when a man’s a hungry, to challenge him the field, and then to break promise with him, and make a fool of him.

And, rather than being the one to propose ideas, Toby offers to help:

Toby: Do it knight. I’ll write thee a Challenge, or I’ll deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth.

Maria, having recovered from being unexpectedly put down by Malvolio, is ready to get back at him, and to win Toby’s admiration:

Maria: Sweet Sir Toby, be patient for tonight: Since the youth of the Count’s was today with my Lady, she is much out of quiet. For Monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him: If I do not gull him into a nayword, and make him a common recreation, do not think I have written enough to lye straight in my bed. I know I can do it.

Toby is intrigued (somehow I imagine him saying this like Sylvester the Cat in Looney Tunes, with a sort of lisp):

Toby: Possess us, possess us, tell us something of him.

Maria continues, setting up her scene:

Maria: Marry sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan.

Andrew, knowing that he can’t beat Maria in wits, now tries to win Toby’s heart via brawn:

Andrew: O, if I thought that, I’d beat him like a dog.

Toby is amused:

Toby: What for being a Puritan, thy exquisite reason, dear knight.

Always very straight-forward, simple-minded Andrew replies:

Andrew: I have no exquisite reason for’t, but I have reason good enough.

Maria explains how her scheme will work:

Maria: The devil’s a Puritan that he is, or anything constantly but a time-pleaser, an affection’d Ass, that cons state without book and utters it by great swarths. The best persuaded of himself, so crammed (as he thinks) with excellencies, that it is his grounds of faith, that all look on him, love him: and on that vice in him, will my revenge find notable cause to work.

Toby is ready for it–he asks the big “what”

Toby: What wilt thou do?

And she presents it:

Maria: I will drop in his way some obscure Epistles of love, wherein by the colour of his beard, the shape of his legs, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated. I can write very like my Lady, your niece — on a forgotten matter we can hardly make distinction of our hands.

Toby takes some time to figure it out:

Toby: Excellent, I smell a device…

Floppishly, Andrew is still trying to win Toby’s approval on the scheme to get back at Malvolio:

Andrew: I hav’t in my nose too.

And, Toby figures it out!:

Toby: He shall think by the Letters that thou wilt drop that they come from my Niece, and that she’s in love with him.

Maria, with mysterious and malicious intrigue:

Maria: My purpose is indeed a horse of that colour.

Andrew gets it, too:

Andrew: And your horse now would make him an Ass.

Maria agrees.

Maria: Ass, I doubt not.

Andrew, no longer competing against Maria, enamored by the plan, is all for it:

Andrew: O t’will be admirable.

Maria assigns her cast (though the Fool, being only haphazardly available, will be replaced by Fabian). Maria makes her leave.

Maria: Sport royal, I warrant you: I know my Physic will work with him. I will plant you two, and let the Fool make a third, where he shall find the Letter. Observe his construction of it. For this night to bed, and dream on the event: Farewell.

Maria exits.

Tags: Andrew, Maria, Toby

This is Part C of the director’s commentary on Twelfth Night Act 2, Scene 3. (A | B | C | D | E)

After Feste leaves, Toby asserts his righteousness, then tells Malvolio to busywork himself by polishing his chain with crumbs. This time, he asks Maria for wine, not Marian:

Toby: Th’art i’th right. Go sir, rub your Chain with crumbs. A stoop of wine, Maria.

Malvolio attempts to beseech Maria, wrongly believing her to be an ally. Except, Maria entertains Toby’s wish, giving him more wine, and thus Malvolio gives his threat.

Malvolio: Mistress Mary, if you priz’d my Lady’s favor at anything more than contempt, you would not give means for this uncivil rule. She shall know of it by this hand.

Malvolio exits via a quick door. Maria, quite shaken up by his threat, replies with fury:

Maria: Go shake your ears!

Tags: Andrew, Malvolio, Maria, Toby

This is Part B of the director’s commentary on Twelfth Night Act 2, Scene 3. (A | B | C | D | E)

Maria enters in the middle of Scene 3, after the festive trio have been making some noise via songs and such.

Maria: What a caterwauling do you keep here? If my Lady have not call’d up her Steward Malvolio, and bid him turn you out of doors, never trust me.

Toby replies partly in prose, partly in song:

Toby: My Lady’s a Cataian, we are politicians, Malvolio’s a Peg-a-Ramsey, and Three Merry men be we. Am not I consanguinious? Am I not of her blood: tilly vally. Lady, There dwelt a man in Babylon, Lady, Lady.

Toby’s reply might be taken to be a punny though drunken “tilly vally” (”fiddlesticks” nonsensical) retort, where, he “reasons” if he’s a “Caterwaulian,” his “consanguinious” (blood-related) cousin must be a “Cataian”. If the three must be quiet, then they might as well be plotting politicians, and if Malvolio’s the person who’d tell them off, then he’s the Peg-a-Ramsey spy… And the festive trio converge to just one person, and thus there’s just three parties–the Cataian Lady, the politician, and the Peg-a-Ramsey.

Crystal Shakespeare interprets Toby’s reply to have some “sense” to it: Cataian - a scoundrel or spy from the Cathays (an area, “roughly” known as China), politicians (players of intrigue), and Peg-a-ramsey (song samples: here and here), referring to the ballad of a spying wife. On giving a geographic interpretation to Cathays — incidentally, this article by Y.Z. Chang has more info on the Elizabethans’ perception of the Cataian or Cathayans (Incidentally, it was published in 1936, a year before the Nanjing Massacre).

Both Arden and the Variorum suggest using the tune of Greensleeves for “There dwelt a man in Babylon…” — for comic effect (and, since we’re not doing a period production, per se), perhaps have a bit of a “Broadway ring” in the ending, “Lady, Lady.”

Toby’s drunken imagination seems to be irking Feste, “beshrewing him,” in that Toby seems a better fool than he, now.

Feste: Beshrew me, the knight’s in admirable fooling.

Andrew, being Andrew, seems eager to claim credit for fool:

Andrew: Aye, he do’s well enough if he be dispos’d, and so do I too: he does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.

Toby bursts into anthem:

Toby: O the twelfth day of December.

Maria’s like, “Oh for the love of god, SHUT UP!”

Maria: For the love o’God, peace.

And then Malvolio enters. Traditionally, he’s dressed in PJ’s, perhaps even with a nightcap. A Steward’s traditional role is to keep order in the house, so, in a way, he’s just doing his duty, but he’s Malvolio, and there’s plenty of repressed angst he’s just got to let out:

Malvolio: My masters, are you mad? Or what are you? Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like Tinkers at this time of night?

At this point, Toby throws the apple at Malvolio, who ducks and continues dissing them:

Malvolio: Do ye make an Alehouse of my Lady’s house, that ye squeak out your Coziers’ Catches without any mitigation or remorse of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?

Toby knows that the trio hasn’t been exactly in-tune or even singing anything worth a sixpence, but, at least they kept in time. He hiccups and sneezes, in time, too!:

Toby:
We did keep time, sir, in our Catches.
(He hiccups and sneezes)
Sneck up!

Malvolio first tries to reason with Toby, in his own way, saying that Toby-sans-clamor is welcome, but the current Toby, however, must be “separated from misdemeanors”:

Malvolio: Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My Lady bade me tell you, that though she harbors you as her kinsman, she’s nothing ally’d to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your misdemeanors, you are welcome to the house: if not, an’ it would please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you farewell.

Toby, ever the self-asserting individualist, even when drunk, declares (in song!):

Toby: Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone. (Hiccup!)

Toby and Feste continue to banter in song, “singing about Malvolio behind his back.” Maria doesn’t join their singsong, nor does Malvolio, who takes their song-lyrics literally.

Maria: Nay, good Sir Toby.
Feste: His eyes do shew his days are almost done.
Malvolio: Is’t even so?
Toby: But I will never die.
Feste: Sir Toby there you lie.
Malvolio: This is much credit to you.
Toby: Shall I bid him go.
Feste: What and if you do?
Toby: Shall I bid him go, and spare not?
Feste: O no, no, no, no, you dare not.

On Feste’s support, Toby starts railing about Malvolio’s presumed “holier-than-thou” attitude:

Toby: Out o’tune, sir, ye lie: art any more than a Stewart? Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more Cakes and Ale?

Feste, makes his leave, perhaps delivering his line with a wishy-washy commitment:

Feste: Yes, by Saint Anne, and Ginger shall be hot i’the mouth too.

Tags: Andrew, feste, Maria, Toby

This is Part A of the director’s commentary on Twelfth Night Act 2, Scene 3. (A | B | C | D | E)

The Fun Scene… with Song!

Toby opens this scene, by goading a likely-tired Andrew to “stay awake” via a perversion of proverb “early to rise…”, though in Latin. For comic effect, he might as well pronounce “deliculo surgere” as “deli - qu - lo  cigar - ray!”:

Toby: Approach, Sir Andrew: not to be a bedded after midnight is to be up betimes, and Deliculo surgere, thou know’st!

Andrew’s drunk-as-heck, so he’s just like, “By my guts, all I know is that, to be up late, is to be up late.”

Andrew: Nay by my troth I know not: but I know, to be up late, is to be up late

In this case, Sir Toby Belch lets go the other bodily function, he whizzes into an empty milk can, the first (yellow-tinted) “milk of the day”:

Toby: A false conclusion: I hate it as an unfill’d can.

It’s a long piss, so he continues philosophizing while whizzing:

Toby: To be up after midnight, and to go to bed then is early: so that to go to bed after midnight, is to go to bed betimes.

Toby zips up his fly:

Toby: Does not our lives consist of the four Elements?

Andrew is a rather down-to-earth-man (read: ok, so, he’s more than a tad uncultured):

Andrew: Faith so they say, but I think it rather consists of eating and drinking.

More booze is always good for Toby (he’s just pissed it all off, anyway):

Th’art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink. Marian, I say, a stoop of wine.

It’s curious that, in context, Maria does not enter the scene until much later (when she complains about the noise), and yet–all of a sudden–Toby mentions a name that seems similar to her name, but does not actually refer to Maria. “Marian”, in my interpretation, refers to the painting of the Virgin Mary (with wine!) that hangs in Olivia’s pantry (Both paintings by Joos van Cleve: Candidate 1 [info] [pic] | Candidate 2 [info] [pic]), wherein Toby makes an obscure reference to the Marian Dogma, which might be fitting for a performance of Twelfth Night at the Blackfriars (considering its Dominican roots).

Feste enters with a bottle of wine, and gathers the trio together in a lovely picturesque moment in front of this painting of the Virgin Mary with wine:

Feste: How now, my harts — did you never see the Picture of we three?

Toby asks for both song and wine “in a catch” from Feste:

Toby: Welcome ass, now let’s have a catch.

Andrew then commends Feste for his voice (”excellent breast”), but since he’s drunk-off-his-ass, he might as well also be staring at Feste’s breast while thinking of the graceful foolery with dance and song last night, and the sixpence to Feste’s “Leman” (lover).

Andrew: By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg, and so sweet a breath to sing, as the fool has. In sooth, thou was in very gracious fooling last night, when thou spok’st of Pigrogromitus, of the Vapians passing the Equinoxial of Queubus: ’twas very good i’faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy Leman, hadst it?

Feste tells Andrew that he has indeed pocketed Andrew’s gratuity, but he says it with a sort of “ring” or a “trill” to his voice, “gratillllllity,” and perhaps says the rest of his line with rap-like rhythm, explaining that Malvolio’s nose couldn’t catch him in giving it to his lady, who appeared too innocent, and the hired killers (Mermidons) weren’t home, anyway, to fix up the matter.

Feste: I did impeticos thy gratillity: for Malvolio’s nose is no whip-stock, my Lady has a white hand, and the Mermidons are no bottle-ale houses.

Andrew’s again delighted by Feste’s nonsense.

Andrew: Excellent: why this is the best fooling, when all is done. Now, a song.

Toby sees through Feste’s hardship, and offers him a sixpence for himself:

Toby: Come on, there is sixpence for you. let’s have a song.
Andrew: There’s a testril of me too: if one knight give a –

Feste bows, in character, and takes on his street-entertainer persona, offering a choice of songs:

Feste: Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?

Toby: A love song, a love song.
Andrew: Aye, aye. I care not for good life.

Feste sings his ditty*:

Feste:
O Mistress mine where are you roaming?
O stay and hear, your true love’s coming,
That can sing both high and low.
Trip no further pretty sweeting.
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man’s son doth know.

I’m going to post my own sheet music for the songs that the actor and I figure out for these singing parts, but meanwhile, Duffin’s Shakespeare Songbook has a series of samples available online that can help cue you in on-tune.

Toby and Andrew then both clamor for “Encore!”, and Feste continues singing:

Feste:
What is love, ’tis not hereafter,
Present mirth, hath present laughter:
What’s to come, is still unsure.
In delay there lies no plenty,
Then come kiss me sweet and twenty:
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.

At this point, Andrew is so drunk that he gives his last retort in a declare of a shout, and then falls down, on the floor, drunk:

Andrew: A mellifluous voice, as I AM TRUE KNIGHT!

Contagious referring to the contagion of not just music and singsong, but also that of drink:

Toby: A contagious breath.

Andrew: Very sweet, and contagious i’faith.

Toby then rouses them all to action, goading them on to “make the sky shake (make the Welkin dance)”, and awake even the “Nightowl in a Catch”

Toby: To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. But shall we make the Welkin dance indeed? Shall we rouse the Nightowl in a Catch, that will draw three fouls out of one Weaver? Shall we do that?

As described in more detail in our OEP2 playscript (pdf | celtx), I’ve gone a bit far and literal, to actually have Toby throw around an apple, in a game of moral catch, where both Toby and Feste betray a bit of their cruelness to be fully revealed in later acts, when they play around with poor Andrew as dog. Toby throws the apple to Feste (who misses and curses “Bloody, sir, and some dogs will catch well!”), while Andrew crawls on all four (drunk), trying to get at the “ball”:

Andrew: And you love me, let’s do’t. I am dogged at a Catch

Feste: By’r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well.

Andrew catches the ball, drops it in front of Feste, sings “Thou Knave”:

Andrew: Most certain: let our Catch be, Thou Knave.

Feste then takes the apple, and, in mockery, knights Andrew with an apple balanced on the knighting-sword:

Feste: Hold thy peace, thou Knave knight. I shall be constrain’d in’t, to call thee knave, Knight.

Andrew rises:

Andrew: ‘Tis not the first time I have constrained one to call me knave. Begin fool: it begins, “Hold thy peace.”

Feste: I shall never begin if I hold my peace.

Andrew: Good i’faith: come, begin.

And Maria enters, monetarily pausing the caterwauling…

Tags: Andrew, feste, Marian, Toby

There seems a number of loose ends (from our modern perspective, anyway) that might need explaining in Shakespeare’s text of Twelfth Night. Here’s some of them from Act 1:

1.  Aristocratic Servant? - When Viola introduces her background as Cesario to Olivia, she makes reference to her noble birth. One might wonder, why would a well-born child be a servant? According to Schalkwyk, it turns out that this is actually fairly common in those days, when over 60% of young people (ages 16 to 24) worked as servants; moreover, the children of noble often worked as servants of other nobles. This might be one of those complex social hierarchies that simply became lost to us modern folks, similar to real feudalism. My conjecture is that this exchange could also be practical, perhaps due to financial reasons; not all nobles are equally wealthy, and some might not even be able to clothe or feed their children “sufficiently aristocratically;” by obligation, the noble the serving noble child serves would have to treat him or her at a certain level (dress them appropriately, feed them, etc.), and so, it is almost like a sort of service-paid boarding school for aristocratic parents who simply can’t take care of their children to send them off to…
2. Is Toby purely manipulating Andrew? - In my interpretation, Toby’s “characteristic cruelness” to Andrew isn’t quite present in Act 1 — it seems that Toby might have a bit of Aspergers, and Andrew is truly one of his only friends (though he also sees Andrew as useful for… other imports relating to his ducats). We always have both Toby and Andrew dancing out to close Act 1, Scene 3, because those two are really having a merry time, and Toby has actually cheered himself up, while trying to cheer Andrew up (with only the slightest undertone that his ducats are the reason). Moreover, women do not find themselves drawn to manipulative men, at least not in the initial stages of love, and if Maria’s romantic fondness for Toby were to begin in Act 1 (rather than in backstory), it’d make sense that, though cynical in her apparent evaluation, Maria sees some sort of compassion from the Toby-Andrew relationship, that her female intuition picks up as a need for like-companionship.
3. Orsino an “Opera-Love”? - Opera often presents love in a way such that love exists only in “the music”, the “spur of the moment,” which seems very similar to Orsino’s take on love. Fidelity in love is a valiant theme in opera, through which some protagonists might even die for, and yet, it seems Orsino’s “love” is as fleeting as the fullness of the music in the air. First Olivia, then Cesario, though homosexuality keeps him back, and eventually Viola. In our 2008 productions (SR1 and AP1), Orsino is presented as old royalty, who perhaps wishes to retire to be able to “be in love all the time,” to revive youthful feelings; in our 2009 production (OEP1), Orsino looks younger, more foolish, and even innocent enough to be in love with an idea. Though the older-looking Orsino might be the type who would be determined to have the heart of one woman, the younger one — youth is all about change — might just simply want the feeling of love, caring not for whom he is in love with, as long as he can be in love.
4. Of Money$ and Penuriousne$$ in Act 1 - It seems Act 1 opens with opulence–Orsino in his court, filled with bouquets ($$$) and musicians ($$$) and luxuries ($$$$$), with hunting expeditions ($$$$$), and servants ($$), and there’s so little for him to do (Illyria is so totally booming and flowing with money, and everyone’s already doing everything), that all he can do is fall helplessly in love with the concept of love itself. And next scene, we have the natural-hazards equivalent of the spike leading to an economic depression, a stock market crash–a shipwreck. A noblewoman loses her family, and is forced to pay a sailor (trader) to gain safe passage into a new land (market). She invests what little she has in a new career, a new beginning, an optimistic rebuilding-attitude to financial loss. Contrast this with Scene 3, where it appears Toby spends his time in revelry partly to put away the more responsible thoughts of earning a living, and to swindle his friend Andrew, into “bringing in” ever more ducats. Viola, though, is still young enough to switch genders to pass for an eunuch and aristocratic servant, unlike Toby in our 2009 production (OEP1), is a middle-aged man, far too old to be an aristocratic servant (though, Toby in our 2008 AP1 production is actually physically a teenager). Both Toby and Viola treat money as a means to an end; Toby, to revelry, and Viola, to be able to make her way in Illyria. And yet, Viola has principles regarding how she’d take money, as seen in Scene 5, where she openly (even rudely) rejects Olivia’s offer of coin. Though her heart pains at the prospect, Viola tries her best in doing her job, which is to try wooing Olivia on Orsino’s behalf. When it backfires, and she feels as if used, she simply stalks away–honorably–as what else can a poor aristocratic servant do?

Tags: Andrew, aristocratic servants, manipulation, Maria, Olivia, opera-love, Orsino, servants, Toby, Viola