Structure and Content: Two Versions of the First Two Scenes

To kind of flip the typical model of read/watch on its head, I showed the students the first two scenes of Twelfth Night before we read them. (We did, however, do a close reading of Orsino's speech during yesterday's class.)

The goal for this lesson is for students to consider the benefits and limitations of both text and film.

After watching the scenes, we then read them aloud.  I assigned parts to volunteers.  (An unforeseen bonus was that they were able to do a better reading than they would if they hadn't watched the play ahead of time.)

You can find the full text of Twelfth Night here.

We followed up with a brief discussion of the events of the play.  The students pointed out that the play and the movie are structured differently, and that Viola was present in Orsino's court when he gave his love speech (in the film), and that was definitely not the case in the play.  

We speculated about why the director, Trevor Nunn, would make that decision, and we came to the conclusion that it gave unity to the play.  Also, we talked about Feste, who is portrayed as an all-knowing, kind of god-like character in the movie.  In the play, the text leads you to understand that Feste is certainly no fool, but his revelations and hints come later in the play.  Nunn inserts that earlier.

Before class was over, I asked the students to suggest why the director made those choices and changes for the play.  The purpose for doing so (even though we had listed and discussed them to a certain extent,) was for students to connect them to purpose before moving into the rest of the play.