But though this be generally the greatest of the twelve, yet the others preceding are observed with mirth and jollity, generally to excess. Was this feasting confined within the bounds of decency and moderation and gave more way than it does to exercises and the religious duties of the season it would have nothing in it immoral or sinful. The keeping up of friendship, and love, and old acquaintance, has nothing in it harmful; but the misfortune is, men upon that bottom, act rather like brutes than men, and like heathens than Christians: and the preservation of friendship and love, is nothing else but a pretense for drunkenness, and rioting, and wantonness.
~Henry Bourne
From Antiquitates Vulgares of the Common People, 1725
The passage above refers to the Feast of Twelfth Night, which occurs on January 6 and is also known as the 12th Day of Christmas. The term "twelfth night" refers to the Feast of the Epiphany. In Christianity the Epiphany occurs 12 days following Christmas. According to Christian faith, it is on this day that the Three Wise Men located the Holy Family and presented their gifts to the baby Jesus. An important aspect of the Epiphany in Shakespeare's time is that it marked the conclusion of Christmas festivities and revelry. Twelfth Night served as a final festive hurrah for persons who had been celebrating since Christmas and would have to resume a non-holiday lifestyle on January 7. While little direct reference is made to the holiday within the text of Twelfth Night, the holiday allows for much of the action—particularly the hijinks of Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, Maria, Fabian and Feste, Twelfth Night was a time for clowns, carnival, and a suspension of norms, much like the midsummer celebrations Shakespeare investigates in A Midsummer Night's Dream and the famous Mardi Gras celebration of New Orleans. As Henry Bourne suggests, celebrations of Twelfth Night lacked the serious tone many expect from religious holidays. In fact, a common practice on Twelfth Night was to elect someone "king" for the day as part of the revelry. This concept of pretending to be what one is not, at least for a day, presents itself in all the cross-dressing and fooling that occurs within Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night.
There is some speculation over the identity of William Shakespeare. It has been proposed that the William Shakespeare was used as cover for some other author. Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, and Queen Elizabeth I are just a few candidates that have been proposed in the past. Historically, however, there is proof that a man named William Shakespeare was baptized in Stratford on April 26, 1564, and buried in Stratford in 1616. Lois Potter writes "The ordinaries of Shakespeare's background—even the fact that his parents' names were John and Mary—is part of its fascination" (Potter 9). While they may add to the "fascination," it is also true that the little reliable information we have about William Shakespeare's life are the ordinary recorded facts.
William Shakespeare was married to a woman named Anne Hathaway in 1582. By 1585, they had three children: Susanna and twins, Hamnet and Judith. It is believed that Shakespeare began living in London shortly after the birth of his twin son and daughter. While Shakespeare worked in London as an actor and playwright, his family remained in Stratford. It is believed that Shakespeare retired from the stage and returned to Stratford around 1613—the year that the famous Globe Theatre was destroyed in a fire. Three years later Shakespeare died, leaving the world a number of poems in addition to the 37 plays attributed to him. Twelfth Night, Or What You Will is believed to have been written around 1599 making it about Shakespeare's 22nd play.
Throughout theatrical history there have been many laws regarding gender and acting. Women were, for much of this history, banned from performing on the stage. In fact, women were not allowed to perform on stage in England until 1660, 60 years after Twelfth Night was written. As a result, cross-dressing on the stage was an everyday theatrical practice. Boys with unchanged voices were hired to portray women within plays. Therefore, the scripted cross-dressing within Twelfth Night takes on added layers of meaning. In Shakespeare?s time, the character of Viola was a woman dressed as boy played by an actor who was, in fact, a boy. By playing with this theatrical convention Shakespeare also plays with gender and sexuality upon the stage. This KU production of Twelfth Night chose to likewise play with the conceit of cross-dressing and gender relations that Shakespeare originally provided within this play by reimaging the character of Orsino as a woman.
There are quite a few records of performances of Twelfth Night. Two early production records come from, respectively, John Manningham and Samuel Pepys. One of Twelfth Night's earliest performances took place in Middle Temple Hall on February 2, 1602. John Manningham, a London law student, was in attendance at this performance and later wrote about the event in his diary. "At our feast," he writes, "we had a play called 'Twelve Night, or What you Will,' much like 'The Comedy of Errors'... (Smith 1). That Manningham was at a ?feast? when he viewed this particular Shakespearean comedy is extremely appropriate. February 2 marked the celebration of the religious feast Candlemas, also known as the 40th Day of Christmas. The Feast of Candlemas was similar to the Feast of Twelfth Night in tone and, like its predecessor, provided an outlet for religious revelry. Samuel Pepys, an avid audience member who was equally avid about recording his experiences in his diary, saw Twelfth Night in 1663. He wrote, "Saw Twelfth Night acted well, though it be but a silly play" (Swander 3). An interesting note on Samuel Pepys "silly" interpretation of the play is that in 1663, when Pepys viewed the play, women were allowed to act on stage so Shakespeare's original cross-dressing concept was slightly less complicated then originally intended.
Since its initial burst of popularity in the 17th century, Twelfth Night has been produced numerous times with numerous production concepts. Production concepts have reset the text into various time periods and used the play's text to address politics, gender relations, and religion in addition to general silliness. This production of Twelfth Night is set in the Storyville district of New Orleans and, as part of its production concept, plays with the concepts of gender and sexuality by casting a woman to play Duke Orsino. It is not the first production to play with the concept of gender by casting against Shakespeare's intended character gender.
A 1991 production directed by Neil Bartlett at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago investigated both gender and race through casting. The Bartlett production cast white women in the majority of roles with the exception of Viola, Sebestian and Feste, who were played by African American men. Unlike the KU production, Bartlett chose to maintain Shakespeare's intended character gender despite this cross-gender casting (meaning male characters remained male within the world of the play even if they were played by women and vice versa). Bartlett writes "women dressed up as men played against and with women dressed up as women [...] boundaries being crossed by cross dressing were multiple" (Gay 47).
In 2002, Tim Carrol directed an all-male cast at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. This casting choice was made in an attempt to reconstruct Shakespeare?s version of the play, one that would have, likewise, featured all men. While some argued that Carrol undermined this "reconstruction" by casting men in female roles instead of boys with unchanged voices, Elizabeth Donno writes: "It was a revelation to see that the adult male 'twins' were literally indistinguishable in their identical costumes and wigs; to experience a moment of confusion when either Viola or Sebastian came on —which is it? And to experience the delighted wonder of all the other characters on stage when Viola and Sebastian are finally face to face, most convincingly 'One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons'!" (Gay 50)
Productions of Twelfth Night have chosen to handle the "identical" nature of Viola and Sebastian in many different ways. Some cast two actors who look similar enough to each other to allow the audience to suspend its disbelief. This casting can then, of course, be aided by costuming (the actors may not be identical but costumes certainly can be). French Theatre maker Ariane Mnouchkin produced a Twelfth Night in 2000 that was influenced by the Italian theatrical style commedia del arte. This production featured "a watchful Feste always in evidence, constant interruptions of folk-style music and at the centre the circus magic of a pair of clown-like twins discovering each other again" (Gay 47). Dressing both Sebastian and Viola in extreme costumes (such as ones resembling clowns) would definitely make them look more like each other. Many famous actors have performed roles in various productions of Twelfth Night. In 1937 Sir Laurence Olivier played Sir Toby in a London production; Dame Judy Dench played Viola in the 1969 Royal Shakespeare Company production, and a 1976 Pittsburgh Public Theatre production starred Leonard Nimoy (Star Trek's Spock) as Malvolio. A recent 1998 production, directed by Nicholas Hytner at the Lincoln Center, featured well-known screen actors Kyra Sedgewick as Olivia, Helen Hunt as Viola and Paul Rudd as Orsino. An interesting part of the concept for this production was the way it chose to highlight the importance of water in Twelfth Night. It did so by building a pool into the set design.
Twelfth Night, like many of Shakespeare's works, has also found its way to film. A film adaptation, featuring Helena Bonham Carter as Olivia and Ben Kingsley as Feste, was directed by Trevor Nunn and produced in 1996. Other film versions include a 1969 British televised version with Alec Guinness (Star Wars' Obi Wan Kenobi) as Malvolio and a 1980 televised version filmed for PBS' The Complete Dramatic Works of Shakespeare Series.
Ariane Mnouchkin's decision to keep Feste on stage at all times places plot focus on his particular storyline. Feste is, perhaps, a non-traditional main character in Twelfth Night. However, due to the many storylines within the play, it is possible to place main production focus on characters other than the "lovers" (i.e. Viola/Orsino, Olivia/Sebastian). One issue that artists, audience members and critics have long had with the text of Twelfth Night is the fact that there are so many plots that audiences are unsure of where to place their primary focus. While this KU production chose to emphasize the Viola/Orsino storyline, past productions, like Mnouchkin's, have made the equally valid choice of placing primary focus on other characters. This is a rather unique aspect of Twelfth Night. Placing emphasis on characters other than Romeo and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet or making the Fool the lead character of King Lear would definitely be bold and unexpected. Twelfth Night, however, allows for much freedom in plot focus. In 1914, Jacques Copeau produced a very successful production of Twelfth Night in France that placed its production focus on Sir Toby, Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Feste. Wildly popular, this production ran for 176 productions and toured to the United States where it also received favorable reviews.
This KU production adjusted the script to make Orsino a woman, and, as a result, the coupling of Orsino and Viola a same-sex relationship. The character of Antonio, however, remains as written by Shakespeare. Many past productions have played the relationship between Antonio and Sebastian as a romantic one. William C. Boles wrote in a review of a 1994 production of Twelfth Night directed by Ian Judge for the Royal Shakespeare Company that Antonio's "admitted love for Sebastian, Viola's twin brother, can be played as mere friendship or as a romantic attachment." Judge's production concept for Twelfth Night, like this KU production, chose to play the romantic tension between Antonio and Sebastian that is easily found within Shakespeare's script.
The general meanness towards Malvolio is brought about, in part, by his religious beliefs. Shakespeare wrote during a time when England was newly protestant. The term "Puritan" is used to describe Malvolio within Twelfth Night. Puritans were persons who wished to "purify" the newly established Church of England from Catholic rituals (and supposedly pagan ritual Catholicism had allowed). Puritans were decidedly against revelry. Bruce R. Smith writes:
"In the England of John Manningham and William Shakespeare, 'merry' and 'mirth' were politically charged words. 'Merry old England' was rapidly ceasing to exist. 'The politics of mirth,' as Leah Marcus has termed the falling out between Puritans attempted to abolish May-games and other traditional pastimes through local edicts and the laws of realm." (Boles 302)
In Shakespeare's play, we find a Puritan on Twelfth Night. This accounts for Malvolio's early lectures and disapproving demeanor. It also explains why those celebrating the holiday (Maria, Toby, Andrew, Fabian and Feste) would choose to target him as part of their celebration. The genius of their prank is that they actually convince Malvolio to unwittingly celebrate the holiday he supposedly despises by donning a costume (yellow tights and cross-garters) and, in his state of love, expressing mirth. In Act 3, Scene IV a smiling Malvolio appears before a shocked Olivia. Olivia attributes Malvolio's strange shift in attitude to "midsummer madness," yet another sort of revelry of which the Puritanical Malvolio would disapprove.
1. One of the production issues faced by those planning to produce Twelfth Night is the fact that the plot requires Viola and Orsino to be viewed as identical when both dressed as men. What are some ways in which this dilemma can be dealt with in both casting and staging?
2. If you could cast your own production of Twelfth Night from a pool of well-known Hollywood actors who would you cast and why? (Idea: you could cast the Olsen twins as Viola and Sebastian. That would, at least, solve the twin dilemma.)
3. In the past, productions of Twelfth Night have addressed contemporary political issues. How could you apply the current election to a production concept of this play? (Some ideas to get you started: you could cast a candidate as a character— Malvolio or Feste perhaps.)
4. Samuel Pepys accused Twelfth Night of being a "silly play." Is this an accurate statement? Can depth be added by production concepts?
5. In Neil Bartlett's 1991 Goodman Theatre production of Twelfth Night, Bartlett cast African American men as the characters of Sebastian, Viola and Feste while the rest of the cast consisted of white women. What could Bartlett's reasoning for this have been?
6. Twelfth Night is a comedy but some find it difficult to laugh at the fate of Malvolio in this play. Contrast Malvolio's comic turns with his sad fate.
7. One of the purposes of this production's general concept is to emphasize that love rises above physical appearances. How is this message already within Shakespeare's text? How is it accentuated by the KU production concept?
8. This KU production chose to reset Twelfth Night to New Orleans, thus bringing to mind the similar holiday Mardi Gras. What are some other holidays or locations that could create a similar atmosphere to the Feast of Twelfth Night? (hint: costumes, music and partying are a good place to start)
Alridge, Anthony. Shakespeare and the Prince of Love: The Feast of Misrule in the Middle Temple. London: Giles de La Mare, 2000.
Boles, William C. "Reviewed Works: Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, Dead Funny by Terry Johnson." Theatre Journal, Vol. 47, No. 2, Gay and Lesbian Queeries. (May, 1995), pp. 302-303.
Bourne, Henry. "From Antiquitates Vulgares, or the Antiquities of the Common People."
Twelfth Night or What You Will: Texts and Contexts. Boston: Bedford/St Martin's, 2001.
Brantley, Ben. "Twelfth Night." The New York Times, 17 July 1998, p. E1.
Favorini, Attilio and John Witty. "Reviewed Works: The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Dale Wasserman, Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare." Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 28, No. 2. (May, 1976), pp. 268-270.
Gay, Penny. "Introduction." Twelfth Night. NY: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Patterson, Doug. "Two Productions of Copeau: The Tricks of Scapin and Twelfth Night." The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 28, No. 1, French Theatre. (Spring, 1984), pp. 37-51.
Potter, Lois. "Shakespeare's Life and Career." Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide. NY: Oxford University Press, Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night. NY: Signet Classic, 1998.
Smith, Bruce R. "Introduction." Twelfth Night or What You Will: Texts and Contexts. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001.
Swander, Homer. "Twelfth Night: Critics, Players and a Script."
Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 16, No. 2, (May, 1964), pp. 114-121.
Wells, Stanley and Lena Cowen Orlin. An Oxford Guide to Shakespeare. NY: Oxford University Press, 2003.
The saga of Storyville begins in 1897, when city Alderman Sidney Story proposed a plan based on European models for a red-light district. Covering 38 blocks, the neighborhood was designed to restrict and tax the wide-spread prostitution in New Orleans. Much to Story's embarrassment, the vice district was named after him and quickly became the largest tourist destination in New Orleans. On the main thoroughfare, Basin Street, the most elaborate bordellos in the country at that time were erected, and estimations place as many as 2,000 working women in Storyville by 1899.
In the brothels and honky-tonks, early jazz techniques were developed by artists like Buddy Bolden and Bunk Johnson. In Madame Lulu White's Mahogany Hall, music was performed nightly by Jelly Roll Morton for the enjoyment of the clientele. These establishments, on the fringes of "acceptable" society, provided economic and artistic opportunities for African-American musicians as well as women. Innovative business women like Emma Johnson and Kate Townsend attracted customers through "Blue Book" advertisements, liquor discounts, and even credit accounts.
Ultimately the district was closed by an order from the federal government in 1917, when four soldiers were murdered in Storyville and several reports of venereal diseases surfaced. The beginning of World War I meant such casualties were unacceptable and the sobering effects of war even cancelled the Mardi Gras Carnival in 1918 and 1919. New Orleans was forever changed but would never forget the vice district that brought the revelry and freedom of "Twelfth Night" to every night of the week.
Many of the women of Storyville have become famous figures in the history of New Orleans. Lulu White, one of Storyville's infamous Madams, was well known to the police force for numerous offenses. Upon her establishment in the Storyville district, she soon had a client list made up of some of the most prominent and wealthiest men in Louisiana. She gave up her business in 1906, overwhelmed by debt she turned towards California. She lost over $150,000 in her investment schemes, and was left destitute before leaving New Orleans. She ran her famed house, Mahogany Hall, until its forced closure in 1917. She is remembered for her glamour and jewels, "which were like the 'lights of the St. Louis Exposition' just as reported in her promotional booklet."
Hattie Hamilton became one of the most famous madams to run a brothel in New Orleans. In 1870, she shot one of her clients, Mr. David Jackson, a Louisiana senator in his home. She was released, by the police, without being questioned or charged.
Kate Townsend, another famous madam, was killed by her lover Troisville Sykes in 1883. He pled self-defense and was released, enabling him to inherit her $90,000 fortune. Madams were among the wealthiest people in New Orleans.
The Storyville district had its own unique method of advertisement. The "Blue Book" was the district's guidebook for tourists and outsiders. It consisted of 40 pages of personal promotion pages from each of the Madams. The book was underwritten and published by none other than the boss of Storyville, Tom Anderson. The book was republished every year, but only five different editions existed. A copy of the 5 cent "Blue Book" from 1904 sold at auction for $5,000.00 in 1999. The following are sample advertisements recorded in The Past as Prelude: New Orleans 1718-1968:
These quotes are troubling for contemporary scholars who recognize the moral ambiguity of these advertisements. Feminist historian Alecia P. Long suggests that the Blue Book advertisements "demonstrate how the promotional schemes of the brothels mimicked those employed by respectable businesses in the city" (165). The unique legitimization of prostitution in New Orleans is particularly fascinating in light of the rest of the United States at the beginning of the 20th century.
Below is a brief timeline of events around the country at the height of Storyville. Many of these inventions and headlines would have been discussed in the brothels and honky-tonks of New Orleans.
1900 George Eastman makes first portable camera
1901 President McKinley is shot dead by Leon Czolgsz
L. Frank Baum writes The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Booker T. Washington writes Up from Slavery
Teddy Roosevelt is elected President
1902 The U.S. Navy installs the first radio telephone aboard ships
1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright take the first test flight,
Kitty Hawk, NC
The Call of the Wild was written by Jack London
The first World Series is held, Boston vs. Pittsburgh
1904 The first comic book is invented
The answering machine is invented
1905 The first "Yellow Pages" is invented
Upton Sinclair writes The Jungle
The Jukebox is invented with 24 songs
1906 2,500 people die from an earthquake in San Francisco
The first animated cartoon is created
Teddy Roosevelt becomes the first president to leave
the country
1907 The Lumiere brothers create still color photography
Pablo Picasso unveils his cubism art, Les Demoiselles
d' Avignon
Henry Ford makes his first Model T for $850
First subject on radio talk is about woman's suffrage
In 1917, the United States government ordered the closure of Storyville. It was in this year that the legal experiment of New Orleans was ended. The district was organized to contain the "vice and immoral sins of the profession of prostitution" but it also served as the center of entertainment and the birthplace of the early roots of jazz music (Evans, 71). It was the birthplace of some of jazz's all time greats, including Jelly Roll Morton, Buddy Bolden, and Louis Armstrong.
Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton (1890-1941) was the first great composer and piano player of jazz. He was a real character whose spirit shines brightly through history, like his diamond studded smile. As a teenager Jelly Roll Morton worked in the brothels of Storyville as a piano player. From 1904 to 1917, Jelly Roll rambled around the South working as a gambler, pool shark, vaudeville comedian and always as a pianist. Jelly Roll Morton was an important transitional figure between ragtime and jazz piano styles.
Charles "Buddy" Bolden (1877-1931) is generally considered to be the first bandleader to play the improvised music, which later became known as jazz. He was the first "King" of cornet in New Orleans, and is remembered by the musicians of that time period as one of the finest horn players they had ever heard. Bolden is particularly remembered for his loud, clear tone and he started playing with a band in 1895 for New Orleans parades and dances. The group eventually rose to become one of the most popular in the city. In 1907, ironically the same year Storyville was closed, his health deteriorated and he was committed to a mental institution where he spent the remainder of his life.
Louis Armstrong is considered by many historians to be the greatest of all jazz musicians. Armstrong defined what it was to play jazz. His amazing technical abilities, the joy and spontaneity, and amazingly quick, inventive musical mind still dominate jazz to this day. Like almost all early jazz musicians, Louis was from New Orleans. He was from a very poor family and some scholars recognize his mother as a working woman in Storyville. Louis was sent to reform school when he was 12 after firing a gun in the air on New Year's Eve. At the school he learned to play cornet.
After being released at age 14, Armstrong worked selling papers, unloading boats, and selling coal from a cart in New Orleans. He didn't own an instrument at this time, but continued to listen to bands at clubs like the Funky Butt Hall. Joe "King" Oliver was his favorite and the older man acted as a father to Louis, even giving him his first real cornet and instructing him on the instrument. By 1917, he played in an Oliver- inspired group at dive bars in New Orleans' Storyville section. In 1919 he left New Orleans for the first time to join Fate Marable's band in St. Louis. Musician Dizzy Gillespie said, "Louis Armstrong's station in the history of jazz is unimpeachable. If it weren't for him, there wouldn't be any of us." Louis Armstrong's history is closely tied to his Storyville roots.
The madams of the Storyville brothels would hire mainly African-American musicians to entertain their clients in the houses. Here many musicians found their niche and sound with these nightly appearances. Without very critical audiences, these musicians were given a great deal of freedom and maneuverability in their music styles. This new form of music was the result of a combination of African, French, and contemporary music influences. A descendant of "ragtime," this new musical form did not find a great deal of acceptance from the upper class citizens. Early on, these wealthy citizens snubbed their noses at the music, only to later bask in its popularity and the recognition it brought to New Orleans.
1. How is Storyville similar to Shakespeare's Illyria? How is it different?
2. Why do you think jazz was able to evolve in Storyville? How is this musical style a representation of New Orleans culture?
3. How does Storyville reflect what is happening in America in the early 20th century?
4. Why is separation and division in class, race, and gender less of a problem in Storyville? How do these attitudes challenge the existing shared cultural values in 1900?
5. How did the World War I change and eventually end the culture of Storyville?
Links to images of Storyville
Cotter, Hodding. The Past As Prelude: New Orleans 1718-1968. New Orleans: Tulane UP, 1968.
Evans, Oliver. New Orleans. New York: The MacMillan Co., 1959.
Huber, Leonard V. New Orleans: A Pictorial History. New York: Crown Publishers Inc., 1971.
Long, Alecia P. The Great Southern Babylon: Sex, Race, and Respectability in New Orleans 1865-1920. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2004.
Rose, Al. Storyville, New Orleans: Being an Authentic, Illustrated Account of the Notorious Red-Light District. Tuscaloosa and London: Alabama UP, 1974.
Szarkowski, John. E.J. Bellocq: Storyville Portraits. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1970.
Vetter, Ernest G. Fabulous Frenchtown: The Story of the Famous French Quarter of New Orleans. Washington: Coronet Press, 1955.
—Study Guide Created by
Susanne Kepley and Boone J. Hopkins