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.