Malvolio

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In the Globe Theatre Company's production of Twelfth Night, Malvolio was played by Timothy Walker.

About Timothy Walker

This is Timothy's first production at Shakespeare's Globe. Previous work includes seasons at the RSC, the Lyric Hammersmith and the West Yorkshire Playhouse. He has worked both as an actor and director with Declan Donnellan's theatre company, ‘Cheek by Jowl’, where his acting roles have included Malcolm in Macbeth, Orsino in Twelfth Night and the title role in Hamlet. Most recently, he appeared as Antonio in The Tempest for the Almeida Theatre Company. Film and TV work includes Peak Practice, Soldier Soldier and the role of Angus in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Click on the numbered links to follow Timothy's journey as he creates and plays the character of Malvolio in the Globe Theatre.

Timothy Walker - Character Notes 1

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.
I’ve really enjoyed the first week of rehearsals, as it's as much about getting to know everybody as about beginning to work on the play. First of all, we had some movement classes both on and off the stage to help us get used to working as a group. The first time I went on the stage brought back a lot of memories, as it was, in a way, the second time I’d been there. I was rehearsing Hamlet with a company called Cheek by Jowl in the early 90s and we were invited to come and try some scenes on a "stage" in the middle of the space. The theatre was only half built then, but it was still an interesting experience; then, as now, the space is so different to conventional theatres and as an actor, I feel very free when working there. I think it's because of the architecture of the building, especially the raised stage. Standing on stage elsewhere and facing a steep bank of seats is a very disenchanting experience for an actor. The audience are only there to watch the play, but at the same time, they dominate the actors on stage. What's interesting about working at the Globe is that the raised platform gives you such a sense of power. At the same time, the stage is the focus of the Globe's unique actor-audience relationship, and this both energises and terrifies me!

At the moment, we have done very little text work on specific scenes. Instead, we have been getting to know our characters using whatever specific information is contained in the play. Before we started rehearsals, we had to prepare three lists containing lines from the play. The first was of those lines where our character describes themselves, the second where they describe other people, and the third where others describe them. Taking each character in turn, we discussed these lists as a group, and then moved on to the physicality of the character. In this exercise, the actor playing each character remains sitting while the rest of the company get up and try out the role, exploring how they think that character might move, or how they might speak. This was really useful, as it can often suggest new ideas for how to play certain parts of your character that you can then take away and develop. It's really a crash course in understanding the play, because we all get the chance to work on all the characters.

So far, what I’ve noticed about Malvolio is that it's a large part that has been written in an amazingly economical way. None of the scenes feel distinct in any way, rather that they have been conceived as part of a whole, and that if you took out any one scene you would miss a crucial development. I’m looking forward to developing my ideas on Malvolio's journey through the play.

At the moment, my biggest challenge is the dancing… At the end of the play, we will do a jig, as this is what many believed happened at the end of a play 400 years ago. Some of Shakespeare's plays have distinct references to this, for instance, in Much Ado About Nothing, "Strike up, pipers!" is the last line of the play. I think that in our production of Twelfth Night, Feste's final song will lead straight into the jig. Malvolio's part in the jig will have to be very small, as it must be based on my many limitations as a dancer. He may not do very much, but he will do it with a flourish!

Activities

What is said about Malvolio?

At the beginning of the rehearsal period Timothy read through the play and made lists detailing:

everything Malvolio says about himself
everything Malvolio says about other characters in the play
everything that other characters say about Malvolio
Make these three lists for Malvolio. What do you find out about the character by doing this? Send your lists and observations to Simon so he can compare them with his own.

Character Reactions

In the activity above you made lists of what Malvolio says about other characters in the play. Many of these comments are made behind that character's back. How do you think that character might react if s/he heard what Malvolio said about them?

Try improvising this situation in pairs with a) as Malvolio and b) as one of the characters he talks about. What do you find out about Malvolio from this activity? Send your discoveries to Timothy.

Differences between the Globe and other theatres

What are the differences between the Globe Theatre and other, "proscenium arch" theatres? Make a list of similarities and differences.

Now apply this list to the text of Twelfth Night. Take one scene, for example, Act 3 scene 4, (when malvolio appears in yellow stockings). How would you stage this scene in a) The Globe Theatre, b) a "proscenium arch" or "black box" theatre? How could the different locations affect the actors’ interpretation of the text? Use the virtual tour of the theatre on the website (www.shakespeares-globe.org) to help you.

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Timothy Walker - Character Notes 2

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.
We’re starting to take some scenes into the theatre now. Going onto the stage has really made me appreciate the possibilities for an actor on the Globe stage. Having said that, it's going to take practice because the space is so unique, especially with the yard and then three galleries stretching all or most of the way round. It's much harder to find a focus there, using the character's intentions to decide how to play the scene

Today, I tried the ‘box tree’ scene (Act ii. scene 5) on stage, but without any of the other characters on stage. It's an unusual scene for the actor playing Malvolio, because his speech is not a straightforward soliloquy; it's an interrupted monologue. Technically, it's very challenging because the actor has to ‘catch’ other actors’ lines and judge their timing accordingly, but at the same time their character cannot appear to hear those same lines. On option is to play it as an interior monologue for Malvolio (almost like a stream of consciousness exercise) but there is so much happening onstage in that scene that you need to think of the speech having a structure; this will help you to keep the audience's attention. Also, when you are playing to a large public audience, it is difficult to pretend that Malvolio is only speaking to himself, that the speech is totally private. I was dissatisfied with how I initially played this scene on stage, as I felt I was breaking up the scene too much; there was no structure. It is a luxury to try to play each line as an individual unit with its own individual meaning, but to make sure the audience fully understands Malvolio's desires and intentions, I will have to make the speech flow more, thinking of it in terms of blocks of text rather than single lines.

After a while, I hope I’ll find a way for me the actor, but also for Malvolio the character, to ‘divide the space’ and address different sections of the audience. Although you are communicating with the whole space when you speak a line on that stage, I know that sometimes I will deliver a line to a particular area of the auditorium. The challenge for the actor is to find a marriage between which lines your character might say to different parts of the audience, and what is technically possible on the stage. This is particularly the case for the class-conscious Malvolio. Malvolio would want to deliver his speech to the most important people in the theatre, those who pay the most money and sit in the Lords Rooms, as he is an aspiring social climber. He may also address the tradesmen who are in the OK seats, because they still have social priority over the absolute scum who would be standing in the yard (the groundlings). However, I will make a different decision about who in the theatre I want to speak to in every performance. This decision will change according to the way an audience reacts to me.

I have been thinking about Malvolio's pre-stage history and his social status. He is a very self-contradictory character. He's seems to have a hidden agenda, due to which he is constantly striving for social promotion, an agenda which to a certain extent gets exposed by the play. He could come from a middling kind of class; his father could also have been a steward. Equally, however, his father could have been a servant and Malvolio could have bought his way out of that lower class by working very hard. Malvolio desperately wants to become a gentleman and he certainly considers himself to be of that class. It's a common thing; many people feel aware of their low social status whilst at the same time having a powerful sense of their own self-worth. There are lots of give-away lines in the play that reveal Malvolio's lack of learning: Maria calls him an “undigested ass that cons state without book and utters it by great swathes…” His lack of understanding is because he wouldn’t have had a university education to help him understand what can find out without one. He has a great appetite for knowledge, and going to university would probably be one of his dreams. I believe that Malvolio would work overtime to disguise the humbleness of his origins, and people who do so are usually very accomplished at it!

What Malvolio learns during the course of the play is widely open to interpretation. He learns that people often treat you very, very badly. He learns that he's a fool to have hoped for Olivia's love and to have believed that was possible. He learns that he can’t become part of the social elite. I’m not sure he learns much about himself. Instead, he learns how cruel other people are. He learns how society overtakes you when it wants to get on. So what would that teach you? I don’t know. And we’ll never know because that's another play! The thing is, that he's a survivor. At the end of the play, Malvolio seems to be to be asking a question: “Why does this happen to me?” and the answer could be any number of things. But the fact that he can get to the question itself is important. Malvolio lives within the confines of his own ego, but at the same time there's a tenderness and a vulnerability about him. That's the power of the role, what makes him a tragi-comic character. I suppose you could play him as a fully tragic character because of what the others do to him. To be exposed to such humiliation – who knows what that would do to someone? People have said that Malvolio is going off to kill himself when he leaves in Act V, Scene i. He might be, but I don’t think so. All sorts of things could happen to him afterwards – but no production can really tell you what they are.

Activities

1) Tim mentions that he is considering which parts of the audience (if any) he could address different lines to.

Use the virtual tour of the Globe Theatre on the main website to explore the space. Which people might have sat in each area of the theatre?

In small groups, experiment with different ways of performing Malvolio's ‘interrupted monologue’, (Act ii scene 5), addressing different lines to different parts of the audience. How does the audience inform the meaning of the text?

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