Twelfth Night/YMMV

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Just pick up two different editions and read any introductions. It's Shakespeare. Come on.
  • Directing a production of Twelfth Night takes on an extra dimension if you're familiar with Alan Gordon's excellent Fools' Guild mysteries, to whit: Feste is a secret agent, engineered the twins' "shipwreck" in order to stabalise the political situation in Illyria, and falls in love with Viola to the extent that after his assignment's success, he spends a lot of the rest of his life trying to drink away the heartache. Oh, and Malvolio is apparently working for Saladin. Introducing these concepts to the actors playing these roles doesn't remotely translate to the audience, but is a hell of a lot of fun.
• Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: At the end of Trevor Nunn's film version, there's a shot of Viola and Orsino kissing next to Olivia and Sebastian -- and Viola and Sebastian reach out to hold hands. You can feel the joy.
• Hilarity Ensues: It's Shakespeare. It always does.
• Ho Yay: Some more Freudian interpretations of the play suggest it's actually intended to be a major theme. It's particularly blazing between Antonio and Sebastian.
• Les Yay: Viola and Olivia.
• Narm: Critics have pointed out that in Viola and Sebastian's reunion scene, the whole dialogue of "My father had a mole upon his brow" feels really artificial and disrupts what is otherwise a very honest scene.