payment page
Scene Study prepares you to perform key scenes for your theater class or audition. We've got all the information you need for a great performance.
Excerpt from Act 1, Scene 5 Dialogue: Olivia, Maria, Viola
|
Understanding the Given Circumstances
Before you begin preparing this dialogue, read the entire text of Twelfth Night so you can understand the broader context. Consider what you know about the speaker, Malvolio.
Read character analyses of Olivia, Viola, and Maria for more information.
For this scene, consider the following given circumstances:
- The scene takes place in Olivia’s home in the land of Illyria. Olivia is in extended mourning for her dead brother, which is why she greets her new guest wearing a veil.
- Olivia is a wealthy woman who has forsaken all suitors for seven years while she mourns. Several men pursue her affections, including Orsino, who sends his messenger Cesario with messages of love.
- Cesario is actually Viola in disguise. Viola is in love with Orsino but must woo Olivia on his behalf. Viola is therefore working against her own romantic interests to do her job well. Before this scene starts, Olivia attempts to have Orsino’s messenger boy sent away, but Viola/Cesario refuses to go until meeting with her in person.
- Maria is Olivia’s witty, irreverent servant. She does not necessarily approve of Orsino’s wooing of Olivia by proxy.
Blocking and Movement
In theater, blocking is the process of planning the actors’ physical movements and positions. Be sure to show respect and establish trust when working with scene partners. As you prepare to block this scene, ask yourself the following questions:
- The first moment of the scene is Olivia asking Maria to put her veil of mourning over her face. She asks twice. How should Maria’s resistance to helping her with the veil be staged?
- In this scene, Viola plays Cesario, a man she claims is a “gentleman”; this indicates wealth more than manners. How does Viola carry herself as Cesario?
- Maria only has a single line in this scene, but she is a powerful presence. How do Olivia and Viola relate to her when she is on stage? When Olivia sends her away, how does that change the physical relationship between Olivia and Viola?
- How does Olivia take her veil off, and what does this gesture reveal? What does it achieve for Cesario/Viola, and how does this new vulnerability and/or directness affect Olivia herself?
- When Olivia attempts to pay Cesario for his time, Viola rebuffs him. How can the staging of this rejection reveal the shifting status of the characters and their intimacy with each other?
- After Cesario leaves, Olivia is alone. She remembers aloud the little final exchange they had about Cesario’s parentage and then rhapsodizes about how enamored she is with virtually every aspect of him. How does Olivia relive their brief dialogue, and how do her gestures and voice change when she is alone?
Characters and Their Relationships
This scene completes the love triangle at the heart of Twelfth Night: each character’s passion is hidden from the object of their love and revealed to the audience, almost simultaneously. Earlier in the play, Viola experiences an electric and immediate love for Duke Orsino. She must keep her feelings secret for at least two reasons: she is disguised as a young man named Cesario, and she knows that Orsino is lovesick for Olivia. Orsino is the Duke of Illyria, an extremely powerful social and political position. Cesario/Viola is under his protection and must do as he says, even if it threatens to derail her own hopes for marriage. She must convince Olivia that Orsino loves her and attempt to win her hand.
Cesario is a brazen messenger boy; he insists on being seen and ignores the decorum Olivia tries to protect herself with. When Viola speaks for Orsino as Cesario, she can be bolder than some of Olivia’s other suitors. Cesario/Viola refuses to take no for an answer and then she refuses Olivia’s money. Cesario’s intensity and passion cut through Olivia’s grief: when Cesario asks her to remove her veil, she complies. Olivia is now struck with a passionate love for Cesario, a love that she compares to a sickness: “Even so quickly may one catch the plague?”
In Cesario’s presence, Olivia dares to remove her protective veil, the symbol of her grief. Viola can relate to Olivia’s sense of loss; she mistakenly believes her brother, Sebastian, is dead. The love triangle is therefore echoed with a loss triangle: Sebastian believes Viola is dead; Viola believes Sebastian is dead; Olivia knows her brother is dead. The loss triangle that shadows the play is one that only the passion of love can break through and realign.
Excerpt from Act 1, Scene 5 Dialogue: Olivia, Maria, Viola
|
