1. GENERAL HEADING: Video and Film Analysis

2. TITLE OF EXERCISE: "Closure and Endings in Shakespearean Comedy"

3. GOALS: To examine various stagings of comic conclusions, and to interrogate the relationships between humor and seriousness, and between comic form and content.

4. NUMBER OF STUDENTS: Any number of students.

5. EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES: VCR; videotapes and scripts of scenes. (Alan Dessen used three versions of the last scene of Twelfth Night: the BBC video, Kenneth Branagh's Renaissance Theatre Company video, and a third production, taped off the air, featuring Alec Guiness as Malvolio.)

6. CLASS TIME NEEDED: 45 - 90 minutes.

7. STEP-BY-STEP DESCRIPTION: The final scenes of several productions of the same play. Discuss the differences in staging; discuss the implications they have for the meanings of the productions.

8. POINTS FOR OBSERVATION, DISCUSSION:

• Elements of theatrical meaning: design, costume, spatial relationships, props, casting, rhythm, light, sound, pace, movement;
• Elements of video: camera angles, close-ups, cuts, selection of image;
• Comic form and rhythm: theories of comedy;
• Styles of comedy;
• Malvolio as victim or scapegoat;
• Romantic expectations for comic conclusions.

9. SOURCE/REFERENCE: Prof. Alan Dessen, University of North Carolina.

10. ADDITIONAL READING: N.A.

11. VARIATIONS: Much Ado About Nothing: contrasting stagings of Benedick's challenge to Claudio; the exaggeratedly idyllic ending of the recent Branagh film, with festival, dance, and cinematic arabesques.