Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, or What You Will, another of his one-of-a-kind creations, seems to be a comedy example of what Fintan O'Toole wrote about regarding the tragedies in his 2002 book called Shakespeare Is Hard, But So Is Life. Its central premise is that Shakespeare's tragedies get much of their power from the fact that neither the characters nor their stories can be contained by categories, and they are, in fact, about transition, in every way possible. Twelfth Night, although a comedy - and arguably his funniest - is also such a play. But I won't go into details just yet because I'm giving lectures on the subject over the next couple of days (to which you're invited, by the way - tomorrow, Tuesday, April 12 at 11 am or Wednesday, April 13 at 7 pm at the Atwater library).

On another note, I've really come to like the 1996 film version of the play. It's worth seeing for Ben Kingsley's performance alone. His Feste (according to Harold Bloom, the only sane character in the play) is both funny and thought-provoking. I find it touches on the nature of comedy itself, as the play itself does. Of course, Feste has the ability to see through the pretensions of the various characters, and one of the really enjoyable aspects found in re-reading the play is to be able to take the time needed to decipher his coded comments. More on that to come with the next post as well. For today, here's a link to Kingsley singing one of Feste's great songs, "Come Away Death": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1X7kfjvQ4o&NR=1.