Twelfth Night

It's the Twelfth Day of Christmas, by some accounts, and Epiphany Eve. I hope I have an epiphany tomorrow.

My husband used to get his presents, in his shoes, tomorrow, January 6, on Three Kings Day. We expect to be snowed in tomorrow, or homebound due to bitter cold and the windchill factor, and since we did not hoard groceries in advance, I hope I have enough imagination to make meals from what's at hand.

The traditional food would be a cake with a bean and a pea in it. I have some beans. Or I could bake a King Cake with a baby Jesus in it. Not happening.

Instead, I offer this interesting account of Twelfth Night, or What You Will, Shakespeare's play performed as it would have been, in Shakespeare's time, with men playing all the roles. It's a production of Shakespeare's Globe in a limited run at The Belasco Theatre in New York, starring Mark Rylance and Stephen Fry. I'd love to see it.

I was in Twelfth Night in college, as Olivia, and in Chicago, with the Steppenwolf Second Company (doing Shakespeare for school groups), as Viola. I was a better Olivia. I'd been instructed in a convoluted rationale just to speak in my regular voice, as a boy would have been playing Viola/Cesario before his voice changed, but I'm not very deep-voiced naturally, so it could hardly have worked. Sigh... Plus my twin (Sebastian) was way taller. I think back on what would have been the more natural casting and wonder why we didn't do that!

Oh, well. I got to play two cool Shakespearean roles + all the women, at one point or another, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, not to mention a variety of fairies. What a nice life.