Illustrations for Tennyson’s Idylls of the King


	Still trying to discover Thomas’ identity, Shakespeare crashes a party at Viola’s manor (where he thinks Thomas works as a servant) and there meets Lady Viola, with whom he falls desperately in love. In conversing with her on her balcony after the party, he recovers his poetic powers and expresses his admiration in a sequence that will become the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet (the name “Ethel” was quickly discarded when the Bard’s poetry returned!). After their meeting, Shakespeare races to his garret, blissfully free of his writer’s block, to work on composing his play.
	Having fallen in love with Shakespeare, Viola is more determined than ever to continue her dual life as a stage actor and returns to the theater disguised as Thomas Kent to join the cast of Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare, believing Thomas to be Lady Viola’s servant, gives Thomas a love letter (a new sonnet) to convey to Lady Viola. In Scene 4, Shakespeare inquires about the reception of his letter and discusses his lady love with Thomas in a conversation that reveals the “play-acting” involved in gender roles and considers the relationship between reality and fantasy in the realm of love. Lady Viola reveals her dual identity as Thomas the actor and Viola the lover, and the scene ends with Shakespeare and Viola consummating their love. After the “real” love-making, Viola attests, “I would not have thought it, but there is something better than a play. Even your play!”
	As the Bard and the lady continue their affair in private, Shakespeare continues to write his play, and Viola continues to rehearse it with the theater company in public, disguised as Thomas. The lovers’ on-stage and off-stage relationships intertwine, feeding and enriching both the reality of their love and the art of the play they’re composing and performing. Scene 5 illustrates this vibrant intermingling of life and art in a sequence that cuts back and forth between the lovers’ private meetings and their stage rehearsals. As they make love in private, they “rehearse” the play, quoting lines of poetry from it to express their love. Rehearsal of the same scene also occurs on stage where Viola’s private emotions inspire her public performance. Note, too, how this sequence plays with reality by continually switching the gender roles. In their private “rehearsals,” Shakespeare performs the part of Romeo and Viola recites Juliet’s lines, while in the public stage performance, Viola plays Romeo disguised as Thomas. How do we distinguish between the “real” love and the stage love in this sequence? Is any distinction possible? What is the scene saying about the relationship between life and art, reality and illusion?
	Despite her love for Shakespeare and the stage, the reality of Viola’s situation as a Renaissance lady asserts itself, and she finds she must marry the man her parents have chosen. She leaves the acting company, and Shakespeare himself must assume her part as Romeo. But the day of Viola’s wedding is also the opening day of the play (surprise!), and Viola escapes immediately after the ceremony to rush to the theater and see the opening performance. The boy playing Juliet is unable to perform, and Viola volunteers to replace him, so that the film ends with Shakespeare and Viola again performing their private roles as the lovers, but this time on a public stage.
	The film shows the play’s climax, the suicides of Romeo and Juliet, in a magnificent scene that illustrates the powerful effects on the theater audience of the very real emotions they see performed on the stage. Reality and stage illusion become one to allow the audience to experience a moment of true tragedy. The scene dramatizes the power of art (in the form of the stage play) not only to envision a myriad of other realities for us, but also to let us truly experience those realities.
	After the play, Lady Viola must return to her husband and leaves with him on a journey to the New World where he owns a plantation. She leaves Shakespeare behind, but her inspiration remains, and in the final scenes, Shakespeare begins writing his next play, Twelfth Night. As he writes, the film shows Viola caught in a shipwreck off the shore of the New World. But instead of tragedy, the shipwreck is depicted as a moment of rebirth for Viola. She rises from the ocean alone and approaches the verdant shore of the New World a survivor, an independent woman. The scenes don’t specify if this situation is happening to Viola in reality, or if it is just the story Shakespeare is imagining as he writes his play (Twelfth Night is about a heroine named Viola who survives a shipwreck and assumes a man’s identity to begin a new life). But these final moments imply that in the end there is no distinction—the illusion of art can envision the very real and empowering potentialities of human life. So perhaps art can allow us to realize our true potential. Consider comparing the stage metaphor in this film and in The Real Inspector Hound—how does the stage represent the many realities possible in the postmodern experience?