Twelfth Night Something Something: A Sequel (because just one isn't enough)

Ok quick pre-script, I tried to make it work but I’m going to want an explanation for what it means to be “in her station,” Scalia. Maybe I’m just tired but I couldn’t get past visualizing a train station.

Can love between classes work?

So, to answer the prompt, yes. Love between classes can work. But that begs another question: will you remain in that class should you pursue that “love?”

In Shakespearean times and earlier than that, love between classes proved to be much more difficult. Heck, love between two enemy families was difficult! Did someone say Romeo and Juliet? But I’m boring myself even, back to the original point, love is able to work no matter. Unpopular opinion: if it doesn’t work, it wasn’t love. However, even more unpopular opinion: making it “work” isn’t always fairy-tale easy.

Why does Sir Andrew Aguecheek decide to stay on as a guest of Toby at Olivia's place? Why is he there to begin with? To party? Something else?
In my opinion, Aguencheek decides to stay on as a guest of Toby at Olivia’s place because he just likes to have someone to follow, that someone being Toby. It has nothing to do with “partying,” unless excessive drinking is considered a party. However, given that the prompt has to do with social class, I am assuming that Aguencheek is hoping to move up from his “knight-ness” and become higher in the class system. Which would make sense because, due to his supposed mannerisms and speech choices, he is probably alienated and isolated from normal “civilization” at times.

Why do Maria, Toby, Fabian, and Feste decide to play such a cruel prank on Malvolio?
Also, Maria, Toby, Fabian, and Feste have a hatred for Malvolio. My original beliefs were just that they hate him because they ain’t him. Then once I got more of a feel for Malvolio’s character, I felt like it was more of his self-proclaimed sense of power over them because of his future with their lady Olivia. However, also given that this prompt is asking about social class, I can begin to sense that maybe it’s hinting that the prank-quad is actually just jealous of his position and his potential of moving up in the social rankings. But I can also see that maybe Malvolio feels threatened by their presence, he feels degraded. Even though my initially processed thoughts were just that some people just have a mean personality.

Is Malvolio really in love with Olivia? If not, why does he fantasize about marrying her?
Malvolio is in love with the idea of Olivia. He loves the power that’s associated with being “in” with the Countess. He fantasizes about marrying her because all of this stored thirst for power he has can potentially ring true. Similarly to how, in today’s society, a guy may date a girl for her looks, Malvolio is interested in Olivia for her power. So, where I don’t doubt that Malvolio does, in fact, get butterflies in Olivia’s presence, I do doubt that he likes her for her personality. He barely knows her! His fetish is power, which is why he fantasizes about it.

Why does Orsino say that Sebastian's blood is "right noble"? Why should it matter?
I find the terminology “right noble” interesting but it doesn’t have much meaning to me personally. If I were to guess what it means, I would say maybe it has to do with (as I’m assuming everything else in this blog prompt does) with social class, social ranking. If his blood is “right noble,” then he must be ranked just under royalty in the class system, I presume. The only reason I can currently come up with as to why it matters would have to be, similarly to Boss Finley’s speech in Sweet Bird of Youth, keeping blood pure and avoiding blood pollution. Weird how they can parallel (would this be an appropriate time to mention juxtaposition, Scalia?). Or like "pure bloods" in Harry Potter. I can see it mattering to Orsino’s royal family, however I don’t see why it applies to Sebastian, given that Orsino isn’t actually interested in him.

And, essentially, social class did play a large role in this play. And those are my thoughts. Now the real Olivia is out.

Twelfth Night Something Something

Upon first glance of the prompt assigned, where I take notice of the truthfulness in the first sentence, “Much of the emotional conflict in Twelfth Night centers around Viola’s charade as Cesario and the perception Orsino has of her,” I also encourage myself to bring out the lack of another important character (and this isn’t just for name-jokes and funsies). I understand that the whole reason Viola becomes Cesario in the first place is because of Orsino’s perception of women other than his only love. However, much of the emotion conflict can be traced back to Viola’s charade; it isn’t centered around it. I believe the drama is dually centered around the confusion Orsino and Olivia share, given that the performance begins with actions with Orsino but grows through the actions with Olivia. So there’s that.

And had I been given direction to instruct the actors to play their characters, I would stray from both the movie we watched and the audio we listened to in class, given that I would not focus on the romance and focus more on the comedy, however, unlike the audio, I would instruct my actors to speak  v e r y   s l o w l y. Ha-ha, take that Shakespeare. But seriously, half the time it sounded like some sort of outer space alien communications between spaceships. But more seriously, I would most definitely coach my actors and actresses to act as if they were all in a comedy, in one huge, confused love trisquaretangle.

My direction would make Orsino less… maybe loved would be the term? Not in a rude, bad way, but in a way where his male servants looked at him a little more like how Maria, Toby, Aguencheek (I won’t be able to spell that by the time the AICE test comes), and the fool look at Malvolio. They’d respect him more than they respect Malvolio but they would take all of his words with a grain of sand. However, Orsino would still be powerful and all, he and all his euniches just wouldn’t be so wimpy all the time. Fencing by day, bathing Orsino by night. Vomit in my mouth. Ha-ha again. Joking because I didn’t actually vomit. Also, I would keep Orsino’s communications with Cesario pretty romantic, because that’s a humor in itself, especially given Shakespeare’s time when homosexuality was very much not represented nor was it written into plays. And, let’s face it, the idea of some big, proud Count guy who claims his love for a mourning Countess actually falling for a short, feminine man who is actually a woman in a decent costume is pretty funny, even today in modern terms. The whole love-confusion is what makes it so funny.

Viola/Cesario would be directed to be more entertained by Olivia, rather than desperately trying to get her point across and desperately trying to please Orsino. In the movie, I felt like Cesario was more concerned for Olivia’s feelings. Where morally, I agree and I would be in the same boat as the movie-Cesario, for the sake of the play, I would encourage Cesario’s lines to be sarcastic. Like “Oh, Olivia, how my master Orsino loooooves you,” or “Wooowwww, let me tell you that you are just soooo beautiful.” And, similarly to Orsino, I would keep Cesario’s interactions with Orsino extremely romantic and her voice and actions stereotypically girly and in a seduction-type way. I.e. twirling her hair, biting her lip, whispering in his ear, you get the picture.

For Olivia (not myself ha-ha) (I should go into comedy for a living), I would make her maybe less sad than she was in the movie and less fake “playing hard to get.” At first in the movie, she tried to hide her desperation for Cesario behind a façade but in my play, she would let all of that desperation hang loose. Because that’s funny. I like how she blows off Orsino in the movie so that can stay. She will just be continually uninterested the moment she hears his name. And he can be like a lost puppy when he hears her name. I think I would have my Olivia regard Malvolio with less respect than in the movie and just be completely disgusted. He’s a weird man.

Also, my apologies for not using the audio play for reference, they talked pretty fast and I could hardly understand much of their voice inflections.

And, finally, Aguencheek. Or Asscheek I guess. He honestly sounded pretty weird in the audio we listened to and not in a funny way just in a weird way. No offense to his voice except that I would definitely not use that same tone and inflection in my play. I liked more in the movie how he seemed to mirror whatever Toby’s action or emotion was, so I would keep that type of mentality for my play. I also liked how he seemed slightly interested in Toby. Slightly, not too much. But I’d keep him as humorous as I saw him in the movie.

Honestly, I could see my play going one of two ways: really good or really bad. There’s no inbetween. Love it or hate it.