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    Feste's 12th
    Feste's 12th
    Feste's 12th
    Ebook105 pages56 minutes

    Feste's 12th

    By Brian Paul Allison

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    About this ebook

    Shakespeare's 12th Night as told by the beloved character, Feste the Jester. This is the modified text used in the sole enactment by the author and performance artist, Brian Paul Allison... a glorious piece of fan fiction, a brilliant twist on the story, and a lifelong aspiration.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrian Paul Allison
    Release dateOct 19, 2019
    ISBN9781370125753
    Feste's 12th
    Author

    Brian Paul Allison

    I am an artist, author, and inspirationalist. I follow a path of holistic health and creativity. I recite poetry from memory in a process I call Poetry Theater (tour de force). My current project is a solo presentation of Shakespeare's 12th Night, abridged and modified as if told through the eyes of Fester, the Jester...

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      Book preview

      Feste's 12th - Brian Paul Allison

      Feste’s 12th

      by Brian Paul Allison

      THE SCHMACSHMILLAN COMPANY

      Lenox: Schmacshmillan & Co,. Ltd.

      Oct, 2019

      All rights reserved

      b r i a n p a u l a l l i s o n . c o m

      Feste’s 12th

      by Brian Paul Allison

      Copyright 10/12/2019

      Published by Wizard of Fitness Printing

      ISBN:

      Other titles include

      The Dire Chronicles, Bk 1

      The Soul in the Stone

      The Art of Collecting Poetry

      Tales of the AGT

      Notes from the Nethersphere

      Fool for the World

      Dedicated to the archetype of the Fool

      Feste’s 12th

      I memorized 12th Night, Shakespeare’s 21st play, in my mid twenties—for no particular reason, but that I loved it so much. Now in my late fifties, I have lived with this play most of my life. It was my first love in the world of the master bard, and now it feels like a culmination of my life’s work in artistic expression to perform a version of it, with my own additions as a kind of fan fiction homage. Moreover, the immersion in the language, and the embodiment of each of the characters has enriched my life immensely already, but to get up on stage and perform these lines straight through will be to accomplish a lifelong dream.

      Though King Henry V tells Falstaff, How ill white hair becomes a fool and jester... and I know that I am not the most likely actor to pull this off, and even if I’m not taken seriously, I must answer the call. Yeats comes to my aid in Prayer for Old Age. Or Tennyson’s Ulysses. Or numerous other poems about personal freedom and self-actualization.

      Harold Bloom was interviewed by Charlie Rose on the subject of Hamlet, and he said, when talking about Shakespeare’s power as a writer in tragedy AND in comedy, an unrealized ideal since the time of ancient Greece, the mature poet was able to compose 12th Night, which Bloom said was almost as good a drama as Hamlet itself—the ultimate of all dramas in English literature, in not only his estimation but a widely held view, with which I agree. However, if I am going to be immersed in one literary masterpiece, I choose romantic comedy over tragical-historical.

      My high school English teacher named Mr. Moody, who was also an actor that I saw perform Prospero in The Tempest, years later in conversation told me that if I were a Shakespearean character I would be Feste. I took that as a great compliment. Indeed, I have always believed the psychological makeup of Feste, or of playfulness in general, is an ideal to strive for in everyday life. I have long been a proponent of the play and humor perspective in all things. Whether as a Creative Exercise Specialist, a Team-Building, Trust Activity Facilitator, or as an Improv Theater instructor using silly warm-up games and exercises to keep this part of the psyche alive and healthy can make the difference between misery and that which flies above it.

      A large part of the wisdom of the fool is the ability to laugh at yourself, a skill as important being able to get dressed in the morning. It is a talent to be worked on, and it connects to a powerful energy. The Archetype of the fool, as depicted in everything from Shakespeare to the Tarot, the need for festivals in society. Also in the many-named trickster quality that is built into the cosmos itself as an expression of playful creativity, as in the Sanskrit word Lila, which means divine play—and love. Playfulness is a quality of love.

      In a lecture on Shakespearean comedy, Professor Peter Saccio from Dartmouth College points out the old idea that mirth and merriment wards off a thousand ills and lengthens life. Even today, this phenomenon is still truly therapeutic.

      So at the end of Feste’s 12th I will invite the audience to join in on the song, and even to get up and dance, whereupon I merge into the crowd of singing and swaying bodies celebrating the experience as one. That’s the idea, anyhow. For my part, I am just happy to still be in the game. And I thank all that by which I am sustained.

      My job is now to get it on the stage in proper form, which is to say in full regalia and polish. To the rest, like or find fault, tis but the chance of art.

      Let me play the fool. With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come... (Lorenzo, Merchant of Venice)

      And, Piece out... (Chorus, Prologue Henry V),

      Brian

      Feste’s 12th

      • Prologue

      Feste

      With the events of

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