#twelfth night

[takeawaythefool]

O Mistress Mine, Where Are You Roaming, 1899, Edwin Austin Abbey

[cbrzines]

Radio Rebel and Twelfth Night

My favorite Shakespeare play is definitely Twelfth Night. I think the comedies are really underrated, and the piles of shenanigans present in the narrative that all collapse in on each other is a wonderful sight to behold in any production that pays it justice. The conceit of cross dressing and hidden disguises is a common trope, whether popularized by Shakespeare's extensive use of it or not, and in this play, it's specifically used to explore the many messy triangles that can happen when one identity is being hidden with another.

Twelfth Night tells the story of Viola, a young woman who becomes stranded in the foreign land of Illyria after a shipwreck, where she believes her brother Sebastian, who she was traveling with, to be dead. In need of money and work in this strange new town all by herself, she decides to cross-dress as a man and play the role of Cesario, and gets a job working for Orsino, the duke of Illyria. She grows a large affection for him that has to remain unrequited because of her tricky predicament, made even worse by the fact that Orsino is obsessed with Olivia, a woman who, in his mind, is “playing hard to get”, because she is still mourning the death of her own brother and isn’t taking any guests at the moment. When Orsino sends Viola as Cesario to talk to Olivia and convince her to get with him, Olivia falls for Cesario, which is the worst possible outcome of the entire arrangement. Antics ensue, we learn that Sebastian is alive and is being mistaken for his disguised sister and vice versa, and eventually we have to have a happy ending, because this is a Shakespeare comedy and pretty much everything gets wrapped up way too perfectly in the end. It’s a good time!

At the end of the day, Twelfth Night is a story about mistaken identity, dual existence, and yearning on a level of catastrophic proportions that I bet were never quite seen before. And who’s to say that’s not also the story of Radio Rebel?

In this movie, there’s a drama class that the main culprits of the plot have all convened together in. There are apparently two separate drama classes that are combining for a group project assignment, where they will be paired up and assigned a scene from a Shakespeare play to reenact in a modern, contemporary setting and style. The main somewhat triangle'd romance arch in the story is between Tara, Gavin, and Stacy. Gavin has an evil best friend named Gabe who prioritizes social climbing and being popular, so he convinces Gavin to act in much the same way, even though his heart isn’t really in it. They’re in a band, which makes shockingly good music for a DCOM, and Gabe believes that it would be best for their exposure if Gavin went to prom with Stacy, a popular girl at their school who has just broken up with her college boyfriend and is looking for a date. Stacy shows subtle interest in Gavin, so when these two end up in the same class because of the drama class merge, he doesn’t waste any time asking Stacy to prom. What throws a wrinkle into all of this is Tara, who is living the secret life of Radio Rebel, a podcaster turned radio show host whose personality seems to be in stark contrast to Tara’s, which is that of chronically shy girl who struggles to speak to anyone other than the 3 people she’s friends with. Tara has had a thing for Gavin for a while by that point, but because of her issues with shyness, she’s never been able to admit it to him. Then these three get put in a group together to perform a scene from Twelfth Night, because apparently their drama teacher picked up on all of this palpable gossip and thought it would be fun to stir the pot or something.

What makes things even more fun is that Gavin is a huge fan of Radio Rebel, and as he grows a friendship with Tara throughout working on their group project, he confides in his emotions surrounding Radio Rebel to Tara, implying that he seems to have a big crush on her, Radio Rebel that is. So this leaves Tara in such an awkward place, since she likes Gavin, and Gavin technically likes her, but she can’t do anything about it, not only because she can barely speak a word to him, but also because she can’t reveal her secret of actually being Radio Rebel to him because of the consequences, which admittedly is not all that high stakes because the movie definitely isn’t perfect. The drama of living two lives really eats away at these two characters in these two stories as they try and navigate their situations as the story moves forwards.

The dichotomy between Orsino and Viola is kind of represented in Gavin and Tara’s relationship, if you squint. Gavin likes Radio Rebel, not knowing that she’s actually Tara. Tara likes Gavin, but he’s in the moment shacked up with Stacy, a girl he’s been convinced he should like, but doesn’t really seem to share any affection for. Orsino only has one single interaction with Olivia in the play near the end where she definitively rejects him, yet he claims throughout the beginning of it that he is madly in love with her. Much like Gavin, Orsino likes the idea of the woman he’s courting more than the actual reality of being with her; in Orsino’s case because he literally doesn’t spend time with her, and for Gavin it's because Stacy is generally nasty because of her hang ups surrounding Radio Rebel. Viola feels as though Orsino would get over his surface level infatuation with Olivia if he just faced the facts of their relationship, which is that there is no relationship to begin with.

The scene that Gavin, Stacy, and Tara have to reenact is Act 2 Scene 4, which is one of my favorite scenes in the play as is the true beating heart of the production. It's a scene where Orsino and Viola are alone, and Orsino asks Cesario to go try and talk to Olivia once again to explain his undying love for her. Viola finally pushes back, not only because since Olivia likes Cesario now, seeing her again would only make things worse, but more importantly, because she truly loves Orsino and wants him to snap out of his delusions surrounding his baseless infatuation. She confesses her love for him through a disguise, claiming that “Cesario’s sister” was once in the exact situation that she’s currently in.

It's up for interpretation whether Viola is attempting to explain her predicament to Orsino in this moment, or if she merely detailing what she believes to be true; her brother is dead, and she is now in his visage by cross dressing, making her now exist within the dual role of both brother and daughter. It's a very fascinating place of stasis for the character to exist within, still clearly dealing with the repercussions of her circumstance, mourning her brother, and in due also mourning the relationship she wishes to have with Orsino, knowing for a fact it can never come to fruition because of the ways in which they met.

For me personally, the narrative can only really work if the audience truly believes that Orsino is actually falling for Cesario, all before he becomes truly aware that she’s actually Viola. The emotional weight just turns to mush if the tension is undercut by this just being another lad-hang-out like all the rest, or Orsino just being confused by the whole endeavor. This scene needs to be different for the two, it needs to establish that palpable chemistry for the final revelation to truly be satisfying enough for me. This is something Radio Rebel honestly does well, it doesn’t muddy things up in the same way certain productions of the play can, most definitely because there isn’t the un-comfortability of gender to contend with inside of the swirling identity of Viola. I say we need to allow Orsino to be bisexual more often, though this is not a hot take, people have definitely been saying this for literal centuries now.

Also I really need to give credit to Radio Rebel for its interpretation of this scene, being completely willing to admit that this is the scene where Orsino starts to fall for Viola, even though there is an obvious taboo present of him only knowing her as Cesario. The risk of being caught in the act of “vagrancy” is very high throughout this play, and although it’s never mentioned, the fear of it is very palpable. The pure fact that the characters outwardly admit that they are falling for each other in this scene is very satisfying for me, because there are many interpretations out there that will only take it to the extent of Viola falling deeper for Orsino, pushing the tragedy of the situation further for her circumstance. But the emotional weight of both having romantic tension, yet still going through with the plot of wooing Olivia for Orsino, is so heavy that it can still move me to this day, even though I’ve read and watched this play like, a billion times. Just the idea that these two could be happy together if they lived in different times, and met under different circumstances, makes their happy ending all the sweeter and vindicating when it actually does come around.

There’s also a bunch of other shenanigans that happen in both the play and the movie, but I’m honestly not all that interested in those elements, at least for the time being. You know, I already made an 80 minute video about Radio Rebel, if you need even more discussion from me about this piece of media. If you want the TL;DR though, I generally dislike the ending, like most people do, but I forgive it more than others because of the absolutely odd adaptational quirks at play. I can’t get too much into here, but this film is trying to adapt like 3 different things at once, plus it was probably made with the less of the budget of an average Smosh video, and with a turnaround time most likely on par with Fred: The Movie. I like to applaud her for trying, plus it's controversially in my top 5 favorite DCOMs of all time, mainly because I had a depressive episode in high school and couldn’t do anything but lay on the couch and cry watching this movie all day every day. Let’s move on.

I’m not quite sure what the reasoning was behind having Gavin find out Tara’s real identity so early on in the story; maybe it was so he could have more plausible deniability in breaking things off with Stacy after their performance debacle, but either way, Gavin’s growing connection with Tara starts between the two of them way before Gavin knows the full truth about her identity. Again, it's not narratively satisfying if Gavin starts dating Tara only after he finds out she’s Radio Rebel, because Tara’s big conflict throughout the movie is her issues with accepting the two different parts of herself and coming to terms with her identity. Gavin proving that Tara is lovable and deserving of affection, even in her most insecure and fearful state, helps her understand her place in the world and grow in confidence to stand up for herself, even when she isn’t playing the role of Radio Rebel. You can slowly see her get more comfortable with talking to people, especially Gavin, as the movie goes on and they encourage her to stand up for herself.

The way Radio Rebel morphs Act 2 Scene 4 for its own amusement isn’t exactly what I would describe as the most desirable outcome. Tara is afraid to admit her feelings for Gavin, literally because she can’t even speak to him; when they’re rehearsing the scene she can’t even face him while she delivers her lines. But the “modern” interpretation is also sanding down the complexities of the scene in general, making it a common case of “why is she so afraid to tell him what she truly thinks?” In the context of the movie, it makes sense that this is how these teenagers are interpreting this scene, because that is the tangible reality of the text. It sometimes makes you really question just how foolish Gavin is for sticking around with Stacy when there’s literally no chemistry or interest present in both of them. It has a lot to do with his own arch of realizing that he needs to be himself and not be pushed around by his loser friend, who just cares about popularity and fame in their band, instead of being real with the music or whatever. In my opinion, the best song from The GGGG’s is the one Gabe writes about partying and girls and stuff, so maybe they can meet in the middle about this whole authenticity thing. It's a very weak interpretation that damages the quality of the emotional weight that this scene could have for the two if it was just adapted a little bit better. They get the romantic tension part down well, but not the true stakes at all.

We’re supposed to believe within the world of the text itself that it's extremely important that Tara not reveal herself as Radio Rebel, because she risks expulsion from her school because of her radical opinions on freedom of speech and stuff. Why not add to that weight by reinforcing it deeper into the narrative with this meta interaction between Gavin and Tara?! They’re able to do something similar in terms of Stacy’s disrespect of Tara, art, and culture as a whole through her dog shit interpretation of the scene as a whole! Stacy sabotages Tara for her final performance by locking her in a closet, so she can’t do the performance with Gavin and Stacy herself as to step in at the last minute. She gives the gambit up immediately within the scene; Gavin is trying to keep the scene in the mood it was originally in where he plays the coquette in it all, and Stacy drops her Cesario act immediately.

She then kisses Gavin, to the bewilderment of both him and the entire audience. Now, I don’t inherently dislike the concept of a kiss happening in this scene, I’ve seen a few productions where they do this, or have the characters lean in for one before quickly stepping away after realizing what was about to happen, and I appreciate those interpretations because it just adds to the palpable tragedy of their circumstance, which I already explained earlier is what I love so much about the scene altogether. This moment is different. Stacy spits in the face of this scene to instead implant her own personal agenda into the moment, ruining it for quite literally everybody. Basically what I’m trying to say is that Stacy is a libertarian! Sure, I complained earlier that Tara is essentially doing this with her interpretation, but that one’s clearly an accident on her part, she stops acting as soon as she turns her back to Gavin, and he does the same. Everything Stacy does is an act, we learn through Tara’s stalking that she has likes and desires, but just suppresses them to instead follow a strict set of rules she’s set for herself.

Stacy is a character who devalues the arts as a whole, because their purpose in the world of this movie is to undermine what she holds in the highest regard, which is her power and societal status. All she has is her popularity, because she’s shed herself of any and all uniqueness to properly fit in and play the game. When Radio Rebel comes around and questions these powers and systems at play, she rages out and tries to defeat her, because Radio Rebel is questioning everything action she’s done in the name of status, by saying there could be another way to live. It’s only when Radio Rebel helps Stacy understand that her true, authentic self is what matters more than power or prestige ever could, that is when she can be redeemed in the narrative.

This is all very obvious within the text of the movie by the way, yall are just assholes who want an easy target to pick on, and no I’m emotionally invested at all in defending this movie, why do you ask?

[shakespearenews]

O Mistress Mine, where are you roaming?

The American artist Abbey spent most of his later life in England. The painting’s title is the first line of the love song recited by the Cl

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

eldest daughters don’t need therapy, they just need to lose everything in a shipwreck, dress up like a boy, and accidentally cause a bisexual love triangle

[quam-caecus-es]

1 - "Fool", Cavetown 2 - Twelfth Night, Shakespeare; III.I.149-151

[sillyyboyy]

Saw a production of As You Like It with a transmasc Ganymede and I keep coming back to the idea of using Shakespearean pants role aliases as my name

Like I would make a badass Cesario / Fidele / Ganymede / Sebastian (not Balthazar, I don’t fw the name)

still like Rowan and Jamie, they’re peak, but I could get behind an additional one

[kelseighanne]

Life update: I got to understudy Maria in a local production of Twelfth Night!

[spc-rambles]

So hey for newbies to the Shakespeare fandom, which analysis channels would you recommend should you be one of those people to watch them? Which adaptations of certain plays in the form of commercial media are objectively the best?