Feste, the character of the madman in Twelfth Night, represents in many ways a playwright figure and embodies the scope and tools of the theatre. He criticizes, manipulates, and entertains other characters by making them reflect on their life situations, which is similar to the way a playwright like Shakespeare interacts with his audience. Furthermore, more than the other characters in the play, he does so in a highly performative manner, involving songs and clever wordplay that must be decoded, and thus particularly reflects the mechanisms at the playwright's command. Feste is a representation of the figure of the medieval madman, empowered by his low status and able to speak the truth of the kingdom. A playwright tells the truth by using fictional actors and characters, who are in a low parallel status to the audience, as they lack the dimensionality of real people. Therefore, the role that Feste plays in the lives of the play's characters resembles the role that the play itself plays in the lives of the audience watching the play. This essay will explore this comparison by first analyzing the similarities between the way Feste interacts with other characters and the way the playwright interacts with the audience, and then focus on the similarities between the goals and content of these interactions. Perhaps the simplest aspect of the way Feste communicates with other characters that resembles the communication of theater itself is the overtly performative nature of his character. A clown, Feste is often portrayed in staged productions wearing elaborate makeup or a fanciful jester costume. In this sense, it is almost a caricature of the way actors wear a new identity...in the center of the card...(47-60). Hotson, Leslie. Shakespeare's variegated. New York: Oxford University Press, 1952. Nevo, Ruth. Comic transformations in Shakespeare. London: Methuen & Co., 1980. Osborne, Laurie E. The Singularity Trick: Twelfth Night and Performance Editions. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1996.Potter, Lois. Twelfth Night: text and performance. London: Macmillan, 1985.Shakespeare, William. The Norton Shakespeare. Edited by Stephen Greenblatt et al. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997. Thatcher, David. Begging to differ: Modes of discrepancy in Shakespeare. New York: Peter Lang, 1999. Vickers, Brian. Appropriating Shakespeare: contemporary critical arguments. New Haven: Yale UP, 1993Wadbrook, MC "Robert Armin and Twelfth Night." Twelfth Night: A Casebook. London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1972. 222-43.