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avevale_intelligencerAs in Twelfth Night.
His last line bothers me.
On the face of it, he's a simple enough character; an upper servant who puts on the Puritan act and derives satisfaction from sneering at almost everybody else, nobles and servants alike, while nursing a festering ambition to be the master of all. A hypocrite, devoid of wit or humour, who gets his comeuppance in the form of a cruelly perceptive practical joke played on him by the people he despises. I burlesqued him briefly in the Eight-Man Austin, and I was planning for my burlesque to end on the same note as Shakespeare's original, but somehow it didn't turn out that way.
Malvolio, having been locked in a dark room for a day and a night on (supposed) suspicion of insanity, is released and brought before Olivia, his employer, whom he intemperately charges with having mistreated him. She denies it, the culprits own up, and the Clown, one of Malvolio's chief victims, reminds him of the sneers and scorns he has lavished on all those around him. "And thus," says the Clown, "the whirligig of time brings in his revenges."
"I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you!" Malvolio says, and sweeps out. As usual with Shakespeare, there's no indication how the line should be played, and in the (admittedly few) versions I've seen, it's done straight, somewhere along a line between simmering resentment and full-blown spitting rage. Malvolio is Malvolio to the end. And this might well have suited the mood of both Elizabethan audiences, who would have had no love for Puritans--especially fake ones--and modern audiences who tend to be rather solicitous of Malvolio's feelings and think him cruelly hard done by.
I'm neither Elizabethan nor especially modern, but I like comedy to be funny (why am I bothering with Shakespeare then, you cry? Who knows) and that ending for the Malvolio plot sours the thing for me. It didn't use to, but it does now. Maybe writing my primitive stick-figure Malvolio brought it home to me. I think, now, I would like to see it done this way:
CLOWN: ...and thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.
Long pause. ZOOM IN (if we're on film) on MALVOLIO's face, still set in angry, minatory lines, as he looks from side to side; he is thinking, of his shattered dreams, his outraged dignity, his recent discomfort; looking at his own behaviour, at himself, suddenly from an unaccustomed angle. He makes a small noise; it might be a cough. Again. Twice more, and suddenly it's clear that he's actually laughing, in a queer, stifled way. Not uproariously, not naturally, but he's seeing himself as funny for the first time in his adult life, and it's doing him good. And gradually, the laughter is joined by a smile. An evil smile.
MALVOLIO: (rounding on CLOWN and others, almost playfully) I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you! (Exit, still chuckling)
I know. It's me. I just love redemption, and I don't see why in a comedy even Malvolio shouldn't get it. And I like my happy endings happy.
I wonder if anyone's ever played it that way?
His last line bothers me.
On the face of it, he's a simple enough character; an upper servant who puts on the Puritan act and derives satisfaction from sneering at almost everybody else, nobles and servants alike, while nursing a festering ambition to be the master of all. A hypocrite, devoid of wit or humour, who gets his comeuppance in the form of a cruelly perceptive practical joke played on him by the people he despises. I burlesqued him briefly in the Eight-Man Austin, and I was planning for my burlesque to end on the same note as Shakespeare's original, but somehow it didn't turn out that way.
Malvolio, having been locked in a dark room for a day and a night on (supposed) suspicion of insanity, is released and brought before Olivia, his employer, whom he intemperately charges with having mistreated him. She denies it, the culprits own up, and the Clown, one of Malvolio's chief victims, reminds him of the sneers and scorns he has lavished on all those around him. "And thus," says the Clown, "the whirligig of time brings in his revenges."
"I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you!" Malvolio says, and sweeps out. As usual with Shakespeare, there's no indication how the line should be played, and in the (admittedly few) versions I've seen, it's done straight, somewhere along a line between simmering resentment and full-blown spitting rage. Malvolio is Malvolio to the end. And this might well have suited the mood of both Elizabethan audiences, who would have had no love for Puritans--especially fake ones--and modern audiences who tend to be rather solicitous of Malvolio's feelings and think him cruelly hard done by.
I'm neither Elizabethan nor especially modern, but I like comedy to be funny (why am I bothering with Shakespeare then, you cry? Who knows) and that ending for the Malvolio plot sours the thing for me. It didn't use to, but it does now. Maybe writing my primitive stick-figure Malvolio brought it home to me. I think, now, I would like to see it done this way:
CLOWN: ...and thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.
Long pause. ZOOM IN (if we're on film) on MALVOLIO's face, still set in angry, minatory lines, as he looks from side to side; he is thinking, of his shattered dreams, his outraged dignity, his recent discomfort; looking at his own behaviour, at himself, suddenly from an unaccustomed angle. He makes a small noise; it might be a cough. Again. Twice more, and suddenly it's clear that he's actually laughing, in a queer, stifled way. Not uproariously, not naturally, but he's seeing himself as funny for the first time in his adult life, and it's doing him good. And gradually, the laughter is joined by a smile. An evil smile.
MALVOLIO: (rounding on CLOWN and others, almost playfully) I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you! (Exit, still chuckling)
I know. It's me. I just love redemption, and I don't see why in a comedy even Malvolio shouldn't get it. And I like my happy endings happy.
I wonder if anyone's ever played it that way?
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Date: 2014-12-04 06:15 am (UTC)I must admit that, as Malvolio shows no trace of a sense of humour in the rest of the play (which I do find funny) fails to notice anyone's feelings but his own, considers himself superior to everyone else, and does not appear to have learned his lesson, I doubt that that is what Shakespeare and his company intended.
Shakespeare's comedies often have bite, or have bittersweet endings. (Consider Loves Labours Lost or, better yet The Merchant of Venice or, for that matter, Measure for Measure (which is often labelled a 'tragi-comedy', though Shakespeare would not have recognised the term) or Trolius and Cressida (likewise.) It is important to remember that Malvolio is guyed as the sort of self officious Puritan who wanted the theatre banned altogether, so Shakespeare had a particular grudge in this area, as did his audience. Queen Elizabeth, before whom this play was performed, would have been sympathetic. (And if Malvolio resembled one of her officials - or even several - much amused.)
Playing Malvolio sympathetically is legitimate, but it is playing to modern sensibilities and not to the text.
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Date: 2014-12-04 09:15 am (UTC)The ending of LLL is...not so much bittersweet as inept, I think, and I don't say that lightly knowing whereof I speak:
"I love you! Marry me!" (three times)
"Oh yes darling!" (three times)
Enter a Messenger.
"Oi. Miss. Your Dad's dead. Just thought you ought to know like."
Short pause.
"Oh. Well. Never mind. That's that then. Have a ghastly penance and see you in a year." (three times)
"Bugger." (three times)
The question about Malvolio is, has he gone through a traumatic enough series of events for him to break his monumental self-absorption and force him to look at himself honestly? I think he has, and yet his ordeal is in fact, from the viewpoint of an ordinary person, not that terrible. Worse things happen at sea.
I think the text is ambiguous as to whether he's learned his lesson or not. Olivia's line following his exit ("entreat him to a peace") can also be played one of two ways, either serious or with a laugh, but it suggests reconciliation either way. And Shakespeare would surely have at least considered the idea that it's better to win your enemies over than to leave them alive but defeated--let the spirit of Twelfth Night do its proper work in turning things upside down, to make sure the elements get a chance to mix well together before resuming their proper places.
Or I may just be romanticising. But I think the text allows that interpretation.