[MUSIC] Today we are talking to Amanda Giguere, Director of Outreach at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, who was Dramaturge for this year's production of Twelfth Night. Did I get all that right? >> You got it. >> Good. So, what is a dramaturge? >> Okay. >> What does a dramaturge do? >> So when I talk about dramaturges, after people are like what or what? >> [LAUGH] Yeah. >> I think of the dramaturge as the person who really is familiar with the text of the play and sort of can navigate the ins and outs of what is happening textually. >> Mm-hm. >> But also sort of thematically what's happening in the play. Sometimes I talk about that dramaturge is the clarity person looking for what is the story that we want to tell in this production? >> Yeah. >> And are we telling it? >> Yeah. >> But on a Shakespeare play, often the dramaturge is the person who knows what the words mean. >> Mm-hm. >> Quite simply. >> Sure. >> And I think part of being a good dramaturge is being able to offer up ideas but not being attached to them, and being able to bring scholarly ideas to the table. And just try to serve the production in whatever ways the director wants to make that production happen. >> Awesome, and how did that play out this time around? In what ways did you contribute to this fantastic production of Twelfth Night? >> Yeah, so with this production, really because Tim Orr and I have worked together before. >> Yeah. >> We've been co-workers at the Shakespeare festival for many years. >> Mm-hm. >> But this was my first time being a dramaturge for him. It was kind of- >> Cool. >> A really natural process where I think early in maybe December, we sat down and I just asked him a series of questions about the play and what kind of things he wanted to emphasize. >> Yeah. >> And just get a sense of, for him, what's the heart of the play? And then that can guide me in what I need to research, and he's a pretty independent director. >> Yeah. >> He sort of knew what he wanted it to look like. So a lot of it was just sort of bouncing ideas around early in the process about if this is the thing you want to focus on, does this work? If music is going to play this role, how might that feed into the way Festes depicted that kind of thing? >> Yeah. How about the performance history of this play? Did that research factor into this production at all? >> Not really. But I think, I did some research into the fact that some productions called the play Malvolio. I think it's interesting to notice how important Malvolio is in the story. Mm-hm. >> I think it's easy to think about that plotline as some sort of a subplot. I think the Malvolio storyline is really key. We know that in 1602, there was a performance of Twelfth Night. It was the first recorded performance at the Inns of Court. >> Mm-hm. >> And we know this because a law student wrote about it in his diary. [LAUGH] >> Yeah. >> John Manningham. The thing that John Manningham recorded in his diary was the Malvolio storyline that if there's a funny butler who dresses up and is made to be a fool. >> Yes. >> And so I think that tells you something about the importance of that storyline. And then also that Shakespeare stole the storyline of the Viola, Orsino, Olivia love triangle, but that Malvolio storyline is his own. >> Right. >> I think whenever you see Shakespeare diverging from his sources- >> Yeah, or adding to the sources. >> Or adding to it. There is a reason. >> Right. >> And then we did talk a little bit in rehearsal about how Richard Burbage probably played Malvolio, which I think, again, points to how important that role really is, if you give your leading actor the role. No, but I think the research that I did was mostly focused on the role of sort of the name of Twelfth Night and- >> Just about to ask you about that, yeah. >> So the origins of Twelfth Night as the festival at marking the end of the 12 Days of Christmas, and because we knew that we wanted to really focus on Feste. >> Mm-hm. >> This idea that the Twelfth Night festivities would be overseen by the Lord of Misrule. And so Tim's concept was he wanted to have Feste as a sort of Lord of Misrule, orchestrating everything,- >> Mm-hm. >> Controlling everything behind the scenes, conjuring up the story with his music. >> Mm-hm. >> And I think that you see in the opening pre show Feste comes out with a little billboard around his neck that says Lord of Misrule. >> Yeah, tell us more about Twelfth Night, because you mentioned when we have the first recorded performance, but then there's that fun fact about Duke Orsini visiting- >> [LAUGH] >> The court a year earlier and it may have been- >> Yeah. >> Performed for Twelfth Night, but what is the significance of Twelfth Night as a holiday where all bets are off. >> Yeah. >> And roles are subverted. Can you talk a bit about that? Because I don't think we have yet. >> Yeah. So I think it's important to note that Twelfth Night was a very big celebration in Shakespeare's day >> Right. >> And that it was a festival of release in a way. >> Yeah. >> And where the whole world gets turn upside down. As I said a Lord of Misrule would oversee the festivities. There would be lots of games and probably drunkenness, and singing, and dancing and merriment, and probably performers brought in to perform plays, short plays. But also this idea of role playing and role switching, so that the person you are in your regular life, you could swap roles with someone else, so a master of the house might dress up as a servant and the servant might- >> Right. >> Be the master. >> Without consequences. >> Without consequences, yeah. >> Yeah. >> So this idea that you are temporarily released from the real world. But that it's only temporary, because by the end of the festival we all go back to ourselves, we become ourselves again. And it's kind of interesting in this play, and the play is not set during Twelfth Night- >> Right. >> Or anything like that, but there are thematic echos between a play that is named for a festival of release and a play about a butler who aspires to marry his boss, or presumably a young noblewoman like Viola- >> Yes. >> Dressing up as a male servant. >> Right. >> So this idea that its a play about trangression and socially sanctioned disruptiveness. So it's kind of interesting if you think about just how that pattern applies to our world. I think if you look at holidays like Halloween. >> Mm-hm. >> That's sort of our contemporary example, or- >> Yeah. >> April Fool's Day or something where we can break the rules because it's built into the fabric of our society that every year, on this day, we break the rules. >> Right, and this notion of what might you discover about yourself when you're playing someone other than yourself? I think, reverberates through so many of Shakespeare's plays. >> Yeah, there's an element of truth telling- >> Right. >> I think, that you've put on a disguise and you can speak the truth. >> Right. >> Viola becomes really truthful when she becomes- >> Right. >> When she is Cesario. >> Right, it doesn't actually disguise but it reveals. >> Yeah, it's really cool.
