Winds of Change

Although my prep school auditorium would have provided a superb and appropriate stage for authentic performances of the bleakest of Samuel Beckett’s most depressing theatrical horrors, for some reason the willowy, eagle-nosed tutors responsible for our annual theatrical productions stubbornly insisted on mounting a Shakespearian comedy every year. By the time they had scheduled Twelfth Night for soporific and adenoidal monotone teenage performance – probably the Christmas of 1982 – my reputation as a classroom malcontent and general disruptive influence had reached its absolute nadir. Consequently, as a form of cruel and unusual punishment, I was cast in the role of Duke Orsino (character most likely to be beaten up by the older boys afterwards), and forced to wear a girl’s blouse, scarlet velvet jerkin, and an outrageously itchy pair of pantaloons each night. An unconvincing adhesive curlicue moustache and an enormous hoop earring leftover from The Pirates of Penzance completed my ridiculous costume. I must have looked something like an El Greco vision of the Gypsy Vagabond rather than a handsome romantic hero of noble birth: but such are the eccentricities of amateur dramatics.
Fortunately, with the exception of excruciatingly choreographed festive square dancing at the very end, most of my really embarrassing acting duties were accomplished by the intermission, and I found myself at liberty to sleepwalk through the remainder of the play by pretending that Orsino had succumbed to an especially virulent form of lovesick catatonia.
Of course, today Twelfth Night is my favorite of all Shakespeare’s works written for the stage; and now oh how I wish I had taken pleasure in my performance of it when presented with the opportunity, instead of shuffling around in the footlights like Estragon on valium. But, as Feste the Clown tells Malvolio in the final act, "thus does the whirligig of Time bring in his revenges." Mind you, at the time, the only type of whirligig I knew were those colorful plastic windmills that children at the beach would planted in the sand, and it was impossible back then, at that awkward and difficult pubescent age, to associate these charming toys with the frightening concepts of either hoary Time or his relentless retributions. You live and learn, eh.

Comments

[Mrs. Peperium]

I'll only feel pity for your schoolboy humiliations and ignorances if your classmates had been intelligent enough to use your bottom for their toastrack. Only if you felt the burning shame of holding hot crumpets between your cheeks while your classmates dined, can I be swayed to feel sorry for your inability to recognize Shakespeare's brilliance in prep school.

[Mrs. Peperium]

Just thought that would add some spice to your litany of nonsense for your old age.

[stephenesque]

I am a great admirer of the Pitts. I did not think that that episode of Blackadder was very funny.

[Mrs. Peperium]

Ahh, you were a toastrack.

[Fcb]

I was put more in mind of Tompkinson's Schooldays than Blackadder. You're right, of course: the "MacBeth" episode was much better. But then, you wouldn't have known that at the time, would you laddie?