Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4rdrl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-22T05:34:06.350Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Malvolio and the Dark House

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2007

Stanley Wells
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Get access

Summary

In writing the comic episode of Malvolio's imprisonment, in the second scene of act four of Twelfth Night, Shakespeare created an action which is not altogether easy to transfer to the stage. In his own time, if we are to believe the direction in the Folio ('Maluolio within' (4.2.20.1)), it was performed with Malvolio entirely out of sight and speaking from the tiring house, possibly from behind one of the stage doors; Feste would have had the entire expanse of the platform stage on which to play his games of changing identities, and we might imagine that the actor would naturally have broadened his antics to retain contact with the audience. In an Elizabethan public theatre, action near the stage doors was well removed from most of the spectators.

Staged thus, the scene does establish an important visual point, in that it is a reversal of the 'box-tree' scene (2.5), during which Malvolio holds the prominent downstage position while the conspirators spy on him from concealment upstage. The comedy of this earlier scene, a theatrical chestnut, depends on our being able both to hear and to see Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian as they watch their gull take the bait; their stealth and circumspection are preposterously inept, and as a result farcical stage business has quite rightly been a tradition of the scene in performance.

Type
Chapter
Information
Shakespeare Survey , pp. 55 - 62
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×