Dramaturgy Blog

Our interest in exploring concepts of gender identity and sexuality in Twelfth Night led us to the 1920s, a period not only of dynamic social change coming out of the Victorian and Edwardian Eras and the War to End All Wars, but also a period in which socially entrenched ideas about gender and sexuality were being challenged, a period in which the queer community was able, despite continuing animosity and a plethora of anti-obscenity laws that were used to criminalize their existence, to find a place in the spotlight.

In 1908, Finnish sociologist Edvard Westermarck published The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas, Vol. II. This book contained a chapter dedicated to documenting queerness, in which he describes historical attitudes towards homosexuality in Europe, noting a recent change towards acceptance – at least comparative to previous eras – and pointing to the growing secularism of European governments, to a general “emancipation from theological doctrines,” and to the campaigning of many of “scientific eminence” as root causes for this change.

Despite Westermarck’s observation that attitudes towards queerness were changing, England’s 1885 Labouchere Amendment, which criminalized any homosexual activity between men in very broad terms, was strictly enforced. It was under this Amendment that Oscar Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison, a sentence widely believed to be the cause of his death a few years later. It is from the archives of English police that we have many examples of lonely hearts magazines such as The Link, in which queer people would advertise for relationships with coded wording such as “artistic,” “broad-minded,” “unconventional,” or “idealist,” meant to fly under the radar of authorities who wanted to arrest them.

Meanwhile, across the pond, the late 19th century and early 20th century saw a migration of Black people out of rural areas and into the urban north, setting the stage for the movement that would become known as the Harlem Renaissance. By the 1920s, Harlem was the largest Black neighborhood in the country. New forms of art, literature, and music were thriving. And, in Harlem’s Hamilton Lodge, drag balls – elaborate parties featuring drag kings and queens dancing and singing – were performed. These began in 1896, and by the 1920s had spread throughout the neighborhood and beyond. The balls were popular with straight and mainstream audiences, sometimes with such prominent figures as the Vanderbilts and Astors in attendance. They were written about in the gossip columns of newspapers, and, at the height of their popularity, were even staged at Madison Square Garden.

Throughout the 1920s, the drag balls were the subject of police investigation, and powerful Harlem minister Adam Clayton Powell preached against homosexuality and cross-dressing. But it was the stock market crash of 1929 and the conservative backlash against drag performers that brought New York’s thriving and public queer scene to an end. Police crack-downs on nightclubs became more frequent and more brutal in the early 1930s, causing many drag performers to leave for San Francisco or Paris, hoping to find more acceptance there.

The exact setting of Twelfth Night has been the subject of much scholarly debate, with most agreeing that Illyria, as Shakespeare writes it, is meant to be semi-mythical rather than a place based in historical reality. “The action [of Twelfth Night],” writes Shakespearean scholar Oscar James Campbell, “takes place in any region remote and unfamiliar enough to seem a natural setting for extraordinary experiences.” Author and editor Evelyn Smith agrees, “[Illyria] is a place of the imagination.” Croatian scholar Josip Torbarina argues, however, that the setting is specifically the city of Dubrovnik, the only sovereign area in the region that could be been ruled by a Duke such as Orsino at the time.

The land of Illyria once spanned the Balkan coast of the Adriatic Sea from modern-day Albania in the south to what is now Slovenia in the north. The last king of Illyria was Genthius, who surrendered to Roman conquerors in 168BCE. Within a few hundred years of Illyria’s annexation by the Roman Empire, it was no more, having been split into the provinces of Dalmatia and Pannonia, then settled by migrating Slavs and subsequently conquered by the Ottomans. By the Tudor period, what had once been Illyria was divided into many smaller regions: lands ruled by the Ottoman Empire in the south, Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire in the north, and long stretches of the coast controlled by the Venetian Republic. As Josip Torbina points out, only the Republic of Ragusa – with its capital city in what is now Dubrovnik, Croatia – was self-governing. 

Where would Shakespeare and his contemporaries have heard about the Adriatic Coast, and what would they have thought of it? They may have learned of it at the Elephant, called the Oliphant circa 1598, a Bankside inn – or perhaps a Bankside brothel – frequented by Italian and Dalmatian sailors. Shakespeare may have gone there to hear tales of the Adriatic Coast. To a Tudor audience, the word “Illyria” would not have conjured thoughts of the wondrous or fantastical, but rather would have been associated with debauchery, drunkenness, and piracy. Tomas Nash, writing in 1596, referred to the people of Illyria as “riotous,” and the works of Claudius Aelian – translated into English by Abraham Fleming in 1576 – accused the Illyrians of “the unmeasurable swilling of wine.” But another contemporary source was Sir Richard Guylforde, who published a memoire in which he called Dubrovnik “strong and mighty,” “rich and fair,” and spoke at length about its beautiful architecture and many holy relics. To Shakespeare, the Adriatic Coast may have been all of these things, a stronghold of art, religion, and culture, and a place of wanton licentious and flagrant illegality.

English folk theatre dates back hundreds of years before Shakespeare, to at least the 13th century, and in the character of Feste and his closing song, we find the traditions of folk theatre alive and well.

The mummers’ plays of old were typically performed for holidays or festivals, sometimes as organized events by acting troupes or professional guilds, sometimes as part of the celebrations by townsfolk. Like the Twelfth Night holiday, “topsy-turvydom” was a hallmark of these plays, in which commonplace roles and ideas were inverted. The script of a play from Lower Heyford exemplifies this: I knocked at the maid and the door came in, and she asked if I could eat a glass of beer and drink a crust of bread and cheese. Robin Hood was a popular subject for these plays, the tale of a criminal who dispensed justice and a justice system that embodied oppression. 

One common stock character of these plays was the Fool, the only character capable of breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience directly. As Shakespearean scholar Robert Weimann describes, the Fool stood “outside the heroic ethos and dramatic conventions,” allowing him to give voice to a down-to-earth attitude that stood in contrast to the play’s other characters. Despite his title, his common sense made clear that he was wise and the nobles and clergy who made up the rest of the cast were the true fools.

These mummers’ plays often ended with song and dance, the ritual and tradition – often religious in nature – of the play giving way to secular revelry. It was the Fool who stood astride the threshold between the play and the song, between fiction and reality, the religious and the secular. As Feste finishes Twelfth Night out with his music, he echoes the words of the Fools who came before him. “We’ll strive to please you every day,” he says, just as the Fool of the Cinderford mummer’s play said, “I will dance a jig to please you all,” or the Fool of the Badby mummer’s play said, “I’ll play you a tune to please you all,” just as other Fools said near-identical words in mummers’ plays from across the country.

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is named for the holiday celebrated in the Anglican Church on January 5th. It is the night before Epiphany, when the Three Kings arrived in Bethlehem to bring gifts to the newborn Jesus Christ. Though the holiday is never mentioned in the play, Shakespeare captures the sense of raucous merriment embodied by Twelfth Night, a night on which all roles were reversed and traditions were flung aside.

The King and Queen – or Lord and Lady – of Misrule epitomized the spirit of the holiday. It was tradition to bake a cake or fruit bread for Twelfth Night parties, and to place one dried pea and one dried bean into the cake. The woman who found the pea in her slice would be Queen for the night, and the man who found the bean in his would be King. Phillip Stubbes, complaining of the custom in 1583, described the Lord of Misrule and his men in their gaudy livery dancing and singing their way to the church, disrupting the service and demanding food or money from the townsfolk who, enjoying the show, would give it to them.

Wassailing was also popular on Twelfth Night. Today, we think of wassailing as caroling from house to house, but this meaning did not come into use until the mid-18th century. In Shakespeare’s time, ‘wassail’ referred to a drinking salutation wishing health, originally from the Old Norse ‘ves heill,’ and wassailers would go from house to house wishing health on the inhabitants rather than singing. They would traditionally be offered a wassail drink – typically spiced mead or cider mixed with honey and apples – from a wassail bowl.

Other Twelfth Night traditions were more religious and solemn. Even today it is customary for Anglicans to chalk their doors, writing symbols and letters above the doorframe that symbolize the Three Wise Men and the blessing of Christ to protect the home and its occupants from evil spirits. It is also common to call a priest to have one’s house blessed as part of the Twelfth Night holiday.