“What country, friends, is this?”

Viola Act 1, Scene 1

For our 2024 production of Twelfth Night, director Prasanna Puwanarajah and designer James Cotterill made some striking decisions to find a character for Illyria, the world in which Viola and her brother are shipwrecked. Before any production, these key decisions are researched and go through many stages to create the right feel and visual effect. Here are some of the main decisions that were made:

• The play was set between the turn of the 20th century to the 1950s. This gave a 50 year time period from which to choose the most suitable tone and look for the production. This time period also meant no-one had to worry about mobile phones or technology spoiling the confusion or plot.
• The stage floor had an aged copper effect to suggest age and water damage. This was dominated by two gravestones to set a mournful tone from the start.
• The colour black is a main feature of Olivia’s world. This included black grass around the edges of the set and characters painting the set black to suit her mood. Splashes of yellow (in the form of flowers and Feste’s costume) are introduced to irritate Olivia and interrupt her world.
• A giant pipe organ reflected the mixed tone in the play with its ridiculous shape and size colliding with the sombre connotations of funeral and church music. This organ also provided different exits and entrances and gave the actors different levels to play from.
• A major influence on the visual and emotional tone of the production was the work of the artist Edward Gorey, with his use of blacks and greys and his dark visual humour.

In music, the word ‘tone’ is used to describe the particular pitch or quality of a musical or vocal sound. ‘Tone’ can also be used to describe a particular shade of a colour. In theatre or drama, ‘tone’ refers to many things: the general character or attitude of a play’s location, language and themes for example. Certain characters can change the tone by having a specific attitude or driving the plot in a different direction.

Twelfth Night is a interesting play in terms of tone as it has a mix of sad and happy events and complex emotions. Our production also contains some deliberate changes of tone for dramatic effect:

• There was a poster of ‘Isle of Scilly Shipwrecks’ on the wall of the rehearsal room, indicating the severity and seriousness of shipwrecks around the world.
• Director Prasanna Puwanarajah changed the order of the opening scenes around so that the production started with Viola surviving the shipwreck. This gives the audience quite a shocking and tragic opening experience.
• The play begins after a tragic shipwreck but Shakespeare places romantic love at the heart of its themes.
• The story deals with grief and longing but is set during the Christmas season: Twelfth Night, or the Feast of Fools, is a tradition dating back to pre-Christian festivals.

In rehearsals, actors have the opportunity to explore their characters in many different ways. The director is an important influence on what activities and games are used to encourage this. Actors also develop their own process for exploring their characters.

• During the read through, any questions about a character were to be answered only by the person playing that character. This gave the actor ownership of the person they were getting to know.
• Status games were played to make actors aware of the different social hierarchies in the play. They were also encouraged to include the audience in this hierarchy.
• The cast came up with names for each scene to make them personal to the production. For example, the production’s opening scene (Viola arriving shipwrecked) was called ‘Water in the lungs’ and Act 2 Scene 3 when Toby Belch arrives home drunk was renamed ‘Alehouse Rock’.
• The director was keen to keep the following questions always in mind:
  • Who are we?
  • Why are we saying what we’re saying?
  • What’s at stake?
  • What is happening? Why is it happening?

A good activity that actors often do to learn more about their character is to decide what their character is not saying. This is often called subtext or the thoughts between the lines.

This performance activity allows students to explore the characters’ outer and inner lives - the things they say and show and the things they keep to themselves. By doing this, they can create rounded, believable characters. (It is best suited to a hall or large classroom. You will need copies of Resource C: Inners and Outers (there are primary and secondary versions of this resource), pens.)

• Students spend five minutes brainstorming everything they know about the characters of Viola and Olivia. Write these things down on paper or a white board for reference.
• Organise your students in a big circle and hand out copies of Resource C: Inners and Outers. Read the scene out loud, line by line and discuss any unfamiliar words.
• Now, organise the students into groups of four or five and ask them to read the scene again, writing down anything the characters might not be saying on the blank lines. Are there any hidden thoughts that could be felt by both women? Does Shakespeare give any clues to these in his language and imagery?
• Give each group ten minutes to create different tableaux or frozen images to match each inner thought they’ve written and rehearse the scene incorporating these physical images.
• Invite each group to perform the scene, using the tableaux and the text. Discuss the results as a group. What did the tableaux add to the text? Are they needed or is Shakespeare’s language and imagery enough?

Discuss the idea of inner and outer feelings with your students. When was the last time they hid their real feelings or behaved very differently to how they felt? In what situations might someone do this? Examples might be: unrequited love, fear of punishment or ridicule, not wanting to appear different, not wanting to hurt someone.

When is it right or wrong to hide your real feelings? What role does social media play in letting people say how they feel anonymously? Is this a good or a bad thing?

Put simply, rhetoric means persuading. Shakespeare’s characters use rhetoric a lot to get what they want. They are using words to persuade others. This keeps them active and dramatic - a character is always doing something to get what they want. Rhetoric makes words interesting.

The Greek Philosopher, Aristotle, named three key ways of persuading in drama. Our actors played with these a lot in the rehearsal room:

• ETHOS: to tell the listener they can trust you, often because of your status. “This is why you should believe me (more than others)…” 

   

• PATHOS: to make the listener feel something, so they can empathise or be moved by emotion to your way of thinking.

   

• LOGOS: using evidence or fact-based argument (however, be wary, this may consist of lies and fake news!).

* There is a 4th type of rhetoric, BATHOS. This is when we undercut something with humour to illustrate a point or make our argument.Shakespeare uses Feste to do this a lot.

“Rhetoric is active, and if engaged with fully, should mean that actors have no issues with audibility.”

Prasana Puwanarajah, director, Twelfth Night, RSC 2024

This writing activity allows students to use rhetoric to create persuasive characters. It encourages them to choose their words carefully and create text that stays active and dramatic and is therefore clear to an audience. (This activity is best suited to a large room or hall. You will need paper and pens.)

• Discuss the four uses of rhetoric and write them on a white board for reference:
  • ▪ETHOS: telling the listener they can trust you / explaining why you should be believed.
  • ▪PATHOS: to make the listener feel something.
  • ▪LOGOS: using evidence / fact-based argument (be wary of lies and fake news!)
  • ▪BATHOS: using humour to illustrate a point or make our argument.
• Organise your students into groups of four or five and explain that they are to write a speech to persuade the rest of the group to do something. They can choose one of the following or invent a cause of their own:
  • Let us run your country
  • Buy us dinner
  • Come and work for us
• Give each group 15 minutes to write the speech using Ethos, Pathos, Logos and Bathos. They can take one of the arguments each, work in pairs or as a whole group. Challenge them to choose their words carefully when writing. What are the most persuasive or effective words to make their argument? Can they make any points without words?
• When the speech is complete, give them another five minutes to rehearse their speech. Will they deliver it as a group or read each part separately? Could they use visual images or sounds to strengthen their arguments?
• Invite each group to stand at one end of the room when they deliver their speech, facing the audience seated together at the other end. Explain that, as they listen, the audience must stand up when they feel compelled by the argument and start moving towards the group as they feel more persuaded. They can also move further away or sit back down again!
• After every group has delivered their argument, reflect on the results:
  • Who was the most persuasive?
  • Could they feel/notice the four types of rhetoric?
  • Which type of rhetoric was the easiest to use?

   

  Reflection Point:

  Shakespeare uses rhetoric famously in plays such as Julius Caesar or Henry V. Where in our modern life is rhetoric used? Examples might be: adverts, political speeches, charity appeals.

  Can students think of any rhetoric from history or today which had a great impact on people, for good or bad? Examples might be:

  • Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I have a dream’ speech, 1963
  • Michelle Obama’s ‘When they go low, we go high’ speech, 2020
  • Footballer Mary Earps ‘From Struggles to Success’ speech, 2024
  • Donald Trump's speech at the United Nations General Assembly, 2018

    Extension Activity:

Invite your groups to make a promotional video for their rhetorical argument. Encourage them to use imagery, editing and music to enhance their rhetoric. Share these videos as a whole group.

“Feste is the fool that Olivia’s father loved, and has been away for a year - when he returns, he brings back with him the memory of her father and though painful, is as close a friend as she's ever had.”

Zoë Templeman-Young, Assistant Director, Twelfth Night, RSC 2024

As well as offering much needed comedy, the fool is often the wisest character in Shakespeare’s plays and can say the most truthful things. In our 2024 production, Feste brings some important physical comedy as well as words and song:

• Olivia has ordered her house to be painted black to reflect her grief. Our Feste is seen using a big bucket and a tiny paintbrush to do the job, showing how ridiculous this decision is.

   

• Feste has a ‘magic’ bottomless bag, like Mary Poppins, from which he is able to produce huge things that obviously can’t fit inside.

• He wears the work-wear of a painter but produces an explosion of ruffs and yellow veils out of his bag, almost to mock Olivia’s use of a mourning veil.

• His clown nose is yellow rather than red, to match the slow invasion of yellow into Olivia’s black sombre world.

“To cue the live music, we had Feste lowered in on a wire, singing. It’s stately, poetic but weird. There is a kind of ‘soupiness’ in your mind when dealing with grief and the weirdness of things.”

James Cotterill, designer, Twelfth Night, RSC 2024

The following performance activity explores the comical choice made to trick Malvolio and how the outcome affects him. Students can also draw on past activities to express inner and outer feelings within the scene. (You will need: a large, clear space, pens and copies of Resource D: Malvolio in Prison. There are primary and secondary versions of this resource.)

• Discuss the trick that is played on Malvolio by Maria and Sir Toby Belch. Why do they do it to him and why is Malvolio fooled into believing Maria’s letter?
• What words come to mind when thinking of Malvolio as a character? Do we know any people in history or in real life that remind us of him? Write these words and examples down on a white board for reference.
• Organise your students into groups of four or five and hand out copies of Resource D and pens and paper. Ask your groups to cast the scene and to appoint a director from within the group.
• Ask your cast to read the scene out loud in their group and to underline any important words that stand out.
• Give the groups five minutes to decide how to stage this scene, with the directors helping to make final decisions. Encourage them to make clear choices on the following:
  • ▪What kind of prison is Malvolio in? Is it big or small? Smelly? Full of rats?
  • ▪Why is it dark? Is he blindfolded or tied up? What can he hear? How close do the other characters get to him?
  • ▪How can they make Maria and Sir Toby active in the scene? What are they both doing? Are they tormenting Malvolio in other ways? Making noises for example?
  • ▪How does Feste disguise himself? How does he move, change his voice?
  • ▪What tone do they want for their scene? Funny or dark or a mixture of both?
• Invite your groups to share their scenes and discuss the results together.
  • ▪How did the Malvolios feel during and after the scene?
  • ▪Were the scenes funny or did the joke go too far at times? How did this affect the audience?
  • ▪Does Malvolio deserve his humiliation in front of Olivia? How does Shakespeare want us to feel about him at the end of the play?

  Reflection:

  When does a joke go too far? Has social media affected the way we see or experience humour? Is it easier to make cruel jokes online? Should there be jokes we cannot make or is this censorship? What examples can we think of when humour is misjudged or causes harm? Examples might be:

  • The dark humour of certain comedians such as Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr or Frankie Boyle.
  • When celebrities get ridiculed for their appearance.

Extension: 

Plan Malvolio’s revenge. Students can work alone or in small groups. The plan can take any form, from a diary entry or letter to a series of drawings or even a short film. Challenge the students to think about what they have learned about Malvolio’s character and who exactly he wants revenge on - a group or an individual. How might these details change his plan?

“From the moment we’re presented with the play, we’re in a world of choices. Viola’s choice to adopt a male disguise as ‘Cesario’ brings emotional turmoil to the lives of Olivia and Orsino.”

Dr Will Tosh, Director of Education at the Globe and author of  Straight Acting: the Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare

Disguising herself as a man is only one of the choices Viola could have made at the start of the play. Her decision makes a huge impact on the people she meets. This creative activity explores that choice and what effect a different decision might have had on the plot of the play. (You will need: large paper & pens.)

• Write down these five stages in Viola’s story on a white board for reference:
  1. Her shipwreck in Illyria
  2. Disguising herself as Cesario
  3. Falling in love with Orsino
  4. Olivia falling in love with Cesario
  5. Reunited with Sebastian & marries Orsino
• Organise your students into groups of four or five and distribute paper and pens. Ask the groups to draw FIVE large squares on the paper and draw stage 1: ‘Her shipwreck in Illyria’ in Box One.
• Explain that they are now going to create a different storyline for Viola, with her making a different choice in Box Two. Add that they can write dialogue or thought bubbles if needed but must use the characters Shakespeare has created. Examples might be:
  • Viola works for Olivia instead, without a disguise
  • Viola stays with the sea captain
  • Viola meets Sebastian immediately and they have adventures together
• Encourage them to think of Box Five and what sort of ending they want Viola’s new story to have. Does she end up married at all? Does this become a bloodthirsty tragedy instead?
• Invite your groups to present their new story to the rest of the group. If you have extra time, ask them to act out their new stories.
• Discuss the results: Which choices were believable? Which squares stood out as exciting plot points? Were there any comical or tragic moments and how did they result from the different choices? Did the different decision-making change any of the characters? For example, how did the different Violas compare to Shakespeare’s in the end?

Reflection Point:

Invite the group, if appropriate, to share any choices they have made that have affected other people. What makes a difficult choice? What pressures are on young people to make the wrong choice sometimes? What can we do to help each other make the right decisions? When can adults help in our decision making? Are there times when they don’t help?

Reflection Point (for older students):

“Shakespeare lived in a Renaissance culture where powerful and erotic same-sex feelings could be expressed in many different ways.”

Dr Will Tosh, Director of Education at the Globe and author of  Straight Acting: the Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare

Discuss Antonio’s relationship with Sebastian. In Shakespeare’s writing, Antonio is deeply in love with Sebastian and this relationship is never undermined or mocked. What does this say about Shakespeare and the age he lived in? Have these scenes aged over time or are they just as relevant today, if not more so?

“To cue the live music, we had Feste lowered in on a wire singing. It’s stately, poetic but weird. There is a kind of ‘soupiness’ in your mind when dealing with grief and the weirdness of things.”

James Cotterill, designer, Twelfth Night, RSC 2024

An American-Swiss psychiatrist,Elisabeth Kübler-Ross,highlighted five stages of grief in the 1960s. This was to help people process and work through deep and difficult feelings. It was later extended to seven stages.

The Seven Stages of Grief:

1. Shock/Disbelief
2. Denial
3. Anger
4. Bargaining
5. Guilt
6. Depression
7. Acceptance

 In rehearsal, the actors explored the Seven Stages of Grief and reflected on which seemed to apply to their characters at different points in the play.This helped them understand their characters further, making sense of what they say and do. It also helped the cast root their characters in reality, becoming people the audience could understand and identify with.

“We had the wonderful Charlie Russell, star of The Play That Goes Wrong come in and run a clowning/comedy workshop with the actors, to find the precision of the comedy, and how it can arrive and depart as swiftly as grief can.”

Zoë Templeman-Young, Assistant Director, Twelfth Night, RSC 2024

The following physical and performance activity allows students to explore the deep and complex feelings within a scene from the perspective of an actor playing in rehearsal and researching their role. (It is best suited to a large hall or clear classroom. You will need a pack of cards, copies of Resource E: Feste and Olivia - there are primary and secondary versions of this resource.)

• Ask students to suggest words for how both Olivia and Feste feel when we first meet them. Write any important words on a whiteboard for reference. Discuss the difference in status between them both. What are the risks if Feste misjudges his comedy?
• Hand out copies of Resource E and ask your pairs to sit facing each other. Hand each Feste a pile of cards and explain that they are going to read the scene through together and every time Feste says or does something to cheer Olivia up, he must place a card in front of her.
• Add that Olivia can choose to pick up the card or not, depending on whether she accepts or appreciates Feste’s attempt at humour. After the pairs have read the scene, compare card numbers - who gave the most cards and why? Who took the most or least cards and why?
• Now give your pairs ten minutes to rehearse the scene on its feet (without the cards). Explain that they can add whatever they wish to the scene, such as modern text or jokes or physical comedy. Remind them that Feste must always be aware that Olivia is his mistress.
• Invite pairs to share their scene and discuss the results.

Extension Activity:

• Ask your students to design two different costume looks for Olivia, one for when she is in mourning and the other after she has fallen in love with Cesario.
• Encourage them to think about when they would like their play set and how they might reflect her different emotions of loss for her father and brother and longing for Cesario.
• Add that they can use original drawings, collage or online design tools if appropriate.
• Invite students to display and talk about their designs and display their different Olivias around the class.

• Ask your students to design two different looks for Olivia, one for when she is in mourning and the other after she has fallen in love with Cesario.
• Encourage them to think about when they would like their play set and how they might reflect her different emotions of loss for her father and brother and longing for Cesario.
• Add that they can use original drawings, collage or online design tools if appropriate.
• Invite students to display and talk about their designs and display their different Olivias around the class.

“It was second nature to write something both a little miserable and unashamedly joyful. That’s what Christmas is after all!”

 Matt Maltese, Composer, Twelfth Night, RSC 2024

For our 2024 production of Twelfth Night, composer Matt Maltese was asked to write an original Christmas song. In order to achieve this, he started working before rehearsals started:

• This gave him a sense of the world of the play so he had a lot of context and material to inspire him.
• He could study Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter and rhyme schemes which are very different to modern song writing in order to fit them to his music.
• The irregular nature of the verse at times allowed for enjoyable twists and turns in his songwriting process.

“Matt has written a bespoke song for the play which expresses a different kind of joy, a joy that’s sort of aware of what joy can cost.”

Prasana Puwanarajah, Director, Twelfth Night, RSC 2024

This writing and creative activity allows students to explore the power of Shakespeare’s language in the play and to experiment with rhythm with a view to writing their own festive song. (You will need: pens, large paper, copies of Resource F: Festive Song - there are primary and secondary versions of this resource).

*Primary Version: using the words & phrases in the primary version of Resource F, follow the activities below choosing one simple chorus for your students to rewrite (for example Jingle Bells or Little Donkey).

  In a big seated circle, tap out the five heartbeats of Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter on the floor: de DUM, de DUM, de DUM, de DUM, de DUM. Ask your students why Shakespeare might have used a heartbeat as a rhythm for his verse?

• Use the heartbeat rhythm to explore the following lines from Orsino, with you reading each line out loud and the students repeating it and tapping out the rhythm on the floor together:

                                 If music be the food of love, play on

                                 Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting

                                 The appetite may sicken, and so die

                                 That strain again! it had a dying fall

• Which words stood out using this rhythm? Are they sad or happy lines? How do they think Orsino feels?
• Discuss the festive songs that they know and what is good about them. Write these song names down on a whiteboard for reference. What are the catchy words, rhymes or rhythms? Are any of these songs both happy and sad and, if so, why?
• Organise your students into groups of two or three and hand each group pens and a large piece of paper and copies of Resource F. Ask them to choose ONE line or phrase from the list and explore the rhythm of that line, tapping it out on the floor.
• Now ask them to write down as many things that their phrase makes them think of or imagine. e.g. if their line is ‘If music be the food of love, play on’, they might think of:
  • Playing games on and on, forever
  • Eating the most delicious feast
  • Swallowing a tuba
• Next, ask them to write down as many words that rhyme with the last word or with any key words from their phrase.
• Ask the groups to look at what they’ve written. What kind of song does this word map suggest? What ‘tone’ might it have? Which Twelfth Night character might sing it?

Extension Activity

If you have the facilities, ask students to make a video for each other’s songs, either very simply on their devices or adding music and lighting effects. They could even be edited together using simple editing apps.

Reflection Point

We have chosen to set our 2024 Twelfth Night at Christmas. What other festivals could this play be set during and what qualities would this bring to a production? Examples might be:

• Indian Divali
• Glastonbury Festival, UK
• The Day of the Dead in Mexico
• La Tomatina in Spain

If you have the facilities, ask students to make a video for each other’s songs, either very simply on their devices or adding music and lighting effects. They could even be edited together using simple editing apps.