From the Bookshelf of Read Between the Wines…

Twelfth Night

William Shakespeare

Start date: June 1, 2014

Finish date: June 30, 2014

Discussion: Book Club Discussions

Why we're reading this: This book was nominated by Jason.
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Discussion: The Diary of a Young Girl
By Jason , Cabernet Sauvignon · 7 posts · 7 views

last updated May 25, 2017 06:30AM

Discussion: Slade House
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last updated Feb 17, 2017 04:44PM

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What Members Thought

Nov 24, 2012 Jason rated it liked it

Shelves: wine-club, reviewed, for-kindle

You know what? I think this play is the Shakespearean equivalent of Three’s Company, a laugh-track comedy with goofball characters and preposterous situations that trigger a chain of events you can see coming a mile away. We’re talking here about a play in which a woman masquerades as a man (pretty much for the hell of it), deceiving everyone into believing she’s a dude without testes—because how else do you, in the absence of injectable testosterone products, convince people you’re a dude other You know what? I think this play is the Shakespearean equivalent of Three’s Company, a laugh-track comedy with goofball characters and preposterous situations that trigger a chain of events you can see coming a mile away. We’re talking here about a play in which a woman masquerades as a man (pretty much for the hell of it), deceiving everyone into believing she’s a dude without testes—because how else do you, in the absence of injectable testosterone products, convince people you’re a dude other than to pretend you’ve been castrated as a young boy? She manages even to convince a wealthy countess of her “maleness,” inadvertently eliciting the countess’s romantic interests, this of course culminating in a wacky situation indeed because the girl herself is in love with the duke she is working for—the very duke who sent her to the countess in the first place to procure the countess’s love for him! OMFG!

But this is a play in five acts, guys, so the Jack Tripper shenanigans don’t end there. The testicle-free girl has a brother—that’s all, just a brother (there are no identical twins anywhere in this play)—and that alone is enough to exacerbate confusion to the extreme. Because by the dual condition that A) she has a brother; and B) she is pretending to be a dude; it must therefore follow that C) she looks exactly like him. And when I say “exactly,” I mean precisely. The two are virtually indistinguishable from one another—even without having had Adam’s apple reduction surgery. Amazing, right? So now we have a girl being mistaken for her brother, her brother being mistaken for her, and this occurring even among people who know the brother intimately. One had spent every day of the last three months with this guy and still thought his sister were he! Can’t you just imagine this whole thing playing out at the Regal Beagle or something? Mr. Furley’s wide eyes darting back and forth in surprise, Chrissy scratching her head in disbelief, Jack hiding under the table, Janet watering her plants.

But all ribbing aside, I actually liked this play. Not as much as Shakespeare’s tragedies, of course—I honestly do believe this particular play is heavier on entertainment value than it is on literary value, but I’m the kind of guy who enjoys a good Three’s Company rerun. Irrespective of situational believability or plot predictability, when it is executed well enough, I am wholly entertained. ...more

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