Twelfth Night Reflection: Were I the first to dissemble in such a gown.

            One of the central questions in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is brought up directly in a witty but otherwise seemingly unimportant speech given by the Fool in Act 4, Scene 2, when Feste disguises himself as a priest to trick the imprisoned Malvolio:

Bonos dies, Sir Toby: for, as the old hermit of
Prague, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily
said to a niece of King Gorboduc, 'That that is is;'
so I, being Master Parson, am Master Parson; for,
what is 'that' but 'that,' and 'is' but 'is'?

            Feste, of course, is not the only character to disguise himself in this play: the plot centers around the assumed identity of a young woman, Viola, who dresses as a eunuch, Cesario, in order to work as a servingman in the Duke’s court.

            So what is “that” but “that” and “is” but “is?” The joke of the scene itself disguises this central issue: what determines something’s identity? The proof that Feste posits right away, “That that is, is” is already disproven when he says it—he is not, in fact, Master Parson. Viola gives us another clue to the answer to this question when she realizes the Countess Olivia is in love with her: “for such that we are made of, such we be.”

            I didn’t really realize when I began working on this show how important these two opposing statements were to the play and to me personally. I chose to focus on the theme of class when I was first conceptualizing the performance, and indeed this issue of “such that we are made of, such we be” is intrinsic to that conversation. Viola acts like a servant, but it is known even before her identity as a woman is revealed that it is not her true place. When asked “What is your parentage?” she responds “Above my fortunes, yet my state is well: I am a gentlemen.” It is important to note that “gentleman” in this context does not simply mean a male (which she is not,) it denotes a very specific class of well-to-do landowners. She is functioning within her “fortunes,” that being her position as a servant, but is inherently of a different class. The countess Olivia repeats this exchange once the presumed Cesario has left the room: it seems to be this, her new paramour’s birthright, that decides for her his eligibility, not his charm, humor, or beauty. Later, when Viola is revealed, Orsino apologizes for having her act below her position, and frames his offer of marriage as repayment for it:

Your master quits you; and for your service done him,
So much against the mettle of your sex,
So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,
And since you call'd me master for so long,
Here is my hand: you shall from this time be
Your master's mistress.          

            On a quite differet end of the spectrum, or perhaps a different spectrum all together, is Sir Toby, who’s behavior in every way seems to put him in the lower class: he sings, he drinks, he makes rude bodily noises. Yet because he is related to the Countess, he is able to get off scot-free for basically every offense he commits, and uses it multiple times as an excuse for his actions.

            I couldn’t have predicted that this particular summer I would have found this whole issue striking a particular chord with me. Although we are not in the world of Elizabethan England where everything is determined by class, it is difficult sometimes not to feel like the situation I was born into (the middlest of middle class, in a place where upper middle class is the norm) affects me often. My year was someone cluttered with themes of financial issues: me and my best friend both spent significant time considering moving back to our home town because of overwhelming college expenses (she ended up doing so,) and I spent a lot of time with  two families who are of considerable wealth and feeling quite left out and I realized in that time that no matter how long I spent with families of different financial and educational levels than my own, or how much college I attended or how similar a career path I chose, I would never “be” like them. It is difficult not to imagine that our little homes where we were born somehow have us on a long tether that can be pulled back at any moment: perhaps “such as we are made of, such we be.”

            More relevant, though, is the issue of assuming identities and functioning in them, and thus we return to Feste’s speech as the parson. “So I, being Master Parson,” he says, “Am master parson.” This is the speech that ended up ringing most true for me about directing and theater in general.

            In theater, obviously, actors take on roles other than their true identities, but I think we often neglect the fact that the other people involved in a show do the same. Unlike other businesses, during a show there is no room and no time for climbing up any ladders: even if you have the skill to be say, a costumer, but have the role of a wardrobe assistant, you shouldn’t be spending time showing off your costuming abilities when you’re supposed to be working as a wardrobe assistant; it would simply send the whole system into chaos. The system of people working on a show is incredibly complex, and I’m finding that more with each performance that I participate in. The jobs assigned to each person are of course very important, but on a psychological level the director, stage manager ,actors ,and designers need to be in very specific places for the whole thing to work. Like acting, to be a stage manager (or director or designer or crew person) one must take on a very specific point of view and pursue a very specific action in order for things to stay on track.

            So I, being the director, was the director for Twelfth Night, but ultimately I am made of the stuff of a stage manager.  I knew going into this show that the only thing qualifying me to direct more than any other company member was the fact that I said I would do it—I called my self a director and I became one, but ultimately I am no more a director than Feste is a parson and Viola is a man.

            That isn’t to say, of course, that I won’t direct again. Taking on roles that aren’t our own is, as I said, what theater is all about.