Feste here

Below are some interesting things I've found over the past few weeks.. more to come soon. I look forward to working with all of you

-Amanda J-C

“TWELFTH NIGHT is ‘the most beautiful man-made thing in the world.” – Stephen Booth in a 1985 meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America

From the 1700s to the early 1900s, Feste’s role in the play was significantly diminished (lines cut, played as an uncomplicated joker, etc.)…in 1912 Harley Granville-Barker became the first to stage Feste as more than a “blithe spirit, flitting gaily through Illyria.” Rather: ”Feste, I feel, is not a young man…There runs through all he says and does that vein of irony by which we may so often mark one of life’s self-acknowledged failures. We gather that in those days, for a man of parts without character and with more wit than sense, there was a kindly refuge from the world’s struggles as an allowed fool.”

Some other quotes/insights:

“The laughter is not far from tears, behind the sunshine there is a hint of storm. The lyric poetry carries echoes and overtones of winter and death; we are never allowed to forget that soon, too soon, the garland is withered and the bugeoning tree will wave gaunt arms in the tempest engulfing King Lear.” –Tryone Guthrie in 1957

“There is indeed an aching sadness at the very heart of his character, something much more pathetically, vulnerably human than can be suggested by the conventional white face of a clown.” – Mary Clarke in 1958

“Bitter, insecure, singing the old half-forgotten songs to the Duke…his jokes now tarnished and not very successful. He is the creation of the professional entertainer, and we may perhaps relate him to John Osborne’s Archie Rice, or to that fearful misanthropy which overtakes most comics when they begin to despise their audiences.” –Peter Hall

*A choice for relationship between Olivia and Feste: Robert E. Eddison’s Feste at the Old Vic in 1978…”stricken by Olivia’s gentle reproach – ‘Now you see, sir, how your fooling grows old, and people dislike it?’—he buried his head sadly in her lap.”
*Interesting for Malvolio/Duccassi: in Peter Gill’s 1974 Twelfth Night…”The fool’s unconventional temperment also revealed an unexpected resemblance to another servant in the household: the steward Malvolio. In some ways, Feste was no less a ‘puritan’ than his antagonist. He viewed the daily Illyrian carnival with the same disdainful glance Malvolio gave the impromptu late-night party. He set a high value on his own opinions as the smug steward, even if they were formed by a keener intelligence. He was sensitive to class differences and monetary considerations. And he set himself apart from his fellows with equal insistence. Illyria is indeed a land where human beings are all mirrors to each other, casting back reflections, whether identical, reversed, or absurdly distorted, that most fail to recognize as images of themselves, so we should expect some correspondences between two fools.”