‘Smiling at grief’: Some Techniques of Comedy in Twelfth Night and Così Fan Tutte

Summary

In the introduction to the 1966 Folio Society edition of Twelfth Night, Peter Hall claims that ‘the comedy is rich, because there is darkness and disturbance’, and his 1958–60 Stratford production with Dorothy Tutin as Viola was outstandingly good because it was so bitter-sweet, fully bringing out the sad, sombre aspects without sacrificing the gaiety and humour: it struck, in short, a balance between extremes of experience. This, it seems to me, is what true comedy always achieves. Its laughter does not exclude the darker sides of life: it is so inclusive because it is aware of the tragic, aware of heartbreak and intensity, but is able to absorb these elements and move beyond them to its reconciliations. These, in their turn, are richer, more complete, more satisfying, because the comedy has not evaded or attempted to ignore these darker elements. It is easier to feel this complexity in performance than to describe it; but the technique of another master of comedy, Mozart, especially in Così fan Tutte, helps to clarify Shakespeare’s achievement in Twelfth Night.