There was very little laughter during this scene and a high degree of sympathy for the woman
who has been deluded into believing the object of her love requites that love. Performed in
such a way, the production questions Bakhtin’s notion of carnival and folk justice through
ritualised laughter as being entirely anti-authoritarian and liberal. It accords more with
Stallybrass’s and White’s poetics and politics of transgression in which those already
marginalised by the state (in this case a gay female, and in macrocosm, the gay female
community), are further victimised and marginalised by this carnivalesque practise. If we, the
audience, align ourselves with Feste, Sir Toby, Maria and Sir Andrew, we become complicit
in the torturous games played upon this character. Having laughed at Malvolia’s neurotic
control of household affairs and at her attempt to woo Olivia, we now realise it is no longer
appropriate to laugh at Malvolia who is tied, blindfolded, bewildered and badgered by a
priest. We are invited now to question ritualised laughter as an expression of anti-
authoritarianism and to ponder whether it means the supporting of hegemonic control.
When roles that are traditionally played by male actors are made available to female
actors, the resistance to it makes visible the inequalities that exist in both the theatre
business and wider culture. Dominic Cavendish, theatre critic of The Telegraph writes, ‘From
now on, we must ask, is any male part in the canon fair game for the “opposite” sex?’ 13 He
continues with a concern for male actors and for male representations of masculinity, ‘My
growing concern, though, is that in breaking down conventions and reaching for alternative
insights, men are being elbowed aside’. 14 By making radical casting choices, the place of
male privilege in the theatre industry is made evident. Playwright Ronald Harwood appears
not so much concerned as uninterested in gender-blind casting, calling the casting of women
in male Shakespearean roles an insult to Shakespeare and ‘astonishingly stupid’. 15 Harwood
appears indifferent to the opportunities offered for the audience of a gender-blind play to
deconstruct their own feelings about gender, about what in gender may be inherent and what
may be performed, and as to where power is located. The National Theatre’s 2017
production of Twelfth Night reveals how changing the gender of a character in a well-loved
play can revivify the more shocking elements of the play and can help us avoid
sentimentalising characters that have become overly familiar or canonical. It reveals that
there are social, psychological and political meanings to be construed when an established
character’s gender is flipped. Even whilst changing the gender of one character may not
Dominic, Cavendish, “The thought police rush for gender equality on stage risks the death of the
great male actor”, The Telegraph, 23 February 2017, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to
see/thought-polices-rush-gender-equality-stage-risks-death-great/
14 Ibid.
15 Snow, Georgia, “Gender-blind Shakespeare casting ‘stupid’, says playwright Ronald Harwood”, The
Stage, 31 st August 2017, https://www.thestage.co.uk/news/2016/gender-bl