Secondly, I want to give many thanks to Steve Schrum for giving me the opportunity to write and direct the play within the play. I would also like to say thanks to my cast and crew for putting the time and energy into making the play what it is. Another thanks goes out to Melissa Fajardo and Amy Hires for taking the extra time to create and teach dances for Barney Meets The I.L.A.P.D. Lastly, I say thank you to my family for supporting me and showing me their love.
‹Cody Stowe.
During one discussion, Cody told me that she had written several short pieces, one of which might fit as an interlude into a Shakespeare play. I immediately seized upon the idea for two reasons. One, it gave a student a chance to direct a theatre piece on campus. (We began this with Robin Williams student directing Life Under Water last semester.) Two, interludes were very popular during Shakespeare's time (see the reverse side of this insert for more information).
Cody showed me two pieces, but I felt Barney Meets The I.L.A.P.D. was more appropriate, since in Twelfth Night, there seems to be a slight fear of the officers who accompany Orsino. In writing such a piece, the author would be satirizing the police as well as Barney. Also, the piece deals with riot and abandon, and attacks cultural icons‹two more examples of the spirit of Carnival set loose upon the world. That's why Barney is in a Shakespeare play.
Interlude is an imprecise term, since it was at various times applied to almost every type of play presented in the Middle Ages. Today it is normally used to designate the plays first presented indoors as a part of the entertainments of rulers, nobles, or rich merchants. The label probably derives from the practice of presenting plays between the parts of some other event, such as the courses of a banquet. The interlude might be of any type: religious, moral, farcical, historical. Often there was singing and dancing as well. Since it was often given in crowded banquet halls, the interlude used little scenery and few characters.
Court Masques
In many ways, these productions were attempts to justify the concentration of power in the hands of monarchs, who were depicted as ruling by merit of divine right. Thus, an idealized vision of monarchy lay at the heart of the masques, and the movement of the masque was from disorder to order with the ruler as the transforming agent.
The masque was similar to the Italian intermezzo, since it presented an allegorical story which suggested parallels between the person being honored or the occasion being celebrated and some mythological personage or event....
Embedded in the masque's allegorical plot were usually three "grand masquing dances": an entry dance; a main dance, during which the performers usually went down into the hall to dance with selected spectators; and a "going-out" dance.
The characters of the masques were usually either allegorical or mythological.