Shakespeare used this allegorical battle as a basis for Twelfth Night. In this play, the figures of Carnival‹Sir Toby, Maria, Feste, and the cross-dressing Viola‹unleash themselves on the world, and sow confusion with their actions. In the end, however, all are restored to order and respectability. Viola's gender disguise is unmasked. Feste, who began as a folk singer, returns to that role, in spite of his brief career as an anarchic Red Hot Chili Pepper. Even the raucous Sir Toby finds himself headed for the altar. Shakespeare follows the traditional battle in all respects but one: Malvolio, the representative of Lent, is banished from the stage, so that the marriages and feasting may take place.
One question that may be raised about this updated production is: why, if it is set in modern times, do the characters speak in Shakespearean verse? For me, Illyria occupies a space-time that is parallel to our own. In writing the play, Shakespeare created an imaginary land he called Illyria. With its seacoast and cities, Illyria could be anywhere. Shakespeare refused to place it geographically or chronologically; it is a fairy tale land, with the story happening in some unknown place "once upon a time."
Physicists and science fiction writers have postulated alternate or parallel worlds and dimensions that have similarities to our own world. In the original Star Trek TV series, an episode entitled "Bread and Circuses" depicted a planet that had developed along the same lines as Earth, and had reached the level of 20th Century technology, but the Roman Empire had never ended. Gladiatorial combats were televised nightly on primetime TV.
On our stage, we have located Illyria in a universe parallel to our own United States, but this place has some peculiarities. Culturally, things are the same; there is still Headline News, MTV, and disco/punk/rap/alternative music. However, linguistically, things are reversed from Shakespeare's time. The daily speech of the citizens is verse; they speak in what we think of as Shakespearean dialogue. (There is, incidentally, a hypothesis currently circulating that suggests the sound of Shakespearean speech was closer to the American sound of James Kirk than the British sound of Jean-Luc Picard.) And, for some reason, when they write stage plays, such as our Interlude, they use prose.
Throwing all of this into the theatrical blender, we offer "Alternative Nation Twelfth Night," a Shakespearean play immersed in the American pop culture of the mid-1990s. Enjoy.
--Steve Schrum