[MUSIC] So I thought we could talk about Act 1, scene 5, which is the first time Olivia and Viola, crossdressed as Cesario, meet. The setup to this is that Olivia has made a big difference in mourning clothes. Colorado Shakespeare Festival production is probably very standard. She's dressed all in black, the veil. And she's sort of committed to herself to mourning for seven years for her dead brother, her dead father. She seems more concerned to mourn her dead brother than her dead father but nevertheless, there is basically a commitment to shutting down desire, to shutting down contact with the outside world. And then we get Act 1, scene 5, Cesario shows up, I guess what's curious to me is, sort of at the beginning of the scene, we have Olivia in morning and by the end of the scene, she's head over heels. Yeah, completely insane as insane as Orsino is like, what is it that attracts Olivia? What flips the switch there? >> I think of the phrase fair cruelty. She doesn't even know his name yet and she's in love or infatuated. And I think that this is a familiar or a favorite subject of Shakespeare's, right, that we see it in as you like it as a subplot where you have Silvius loving Phoebe's cruelty and Phoebe loving Ganymede's cruelty. And here it's a main plotline. And I'm always interested in, what I'm working on midsummer right now and even bottom says reason and love keeping the company together nowadays, so he's exploring this throughout the candor and I just think it's easy to sort of write it off as a team snake. You know, that Olivia is just, that it's the thrill of the chase alone. But I also think, that Olivia is something of a truth seeker. That Olivia, I mean, we see it in her exchanges with her allowed fool, that she likes complex- >> Yeah. >> Conversation and behavior, and Orsino, as you said, Orsino feels artificial, he's hiding behind an emotional mask, right? Of course, the paradox is that it's Cesario who's actually in disguise, right? But Olivia recognizes in the candor of Cesario, a kind of complexity that I think she finds attractive. I think that there is something there that it's not the same thing as just, seeing from a distance and becoming enamored. It takes that conversation and Cesario challenging her, for her to become interested. That's my thought. So it's not just being mean to me because I like it or because it's not just the thrill of the chase. But there's a desire for truth and authenticity. >> And we could have spent days, weeks, actors weeks exploring this scene because there are so many clues and things that could be clues and different ways to play it. And I totally agree with you. I think that Olivia is attracted to the candor of someone who, well we gotta remember Viola is sort of is high born. Like Olivia, she says later in the play my father, or her brother says, my father's that Sebastian whom I know you've heard of. And yet she's disguised as a servant, as a messenger, but she doesn't behave like a messenger. She steps over the line a number of times with confidence and Olivia has never been spoken to this way before by a messenger and one that is young and handsome. And it's that honesty and also it's also two women talking to each other. And it's Viola who's like really listening and really asking questions and really paying attention to Olivia, and that's another choice that you can make. It's like maybe for the first time somebody is really listening and seeing Olivia for herself, and that's what she gets attracted to. And then the last I think, close to the last line of the scene is Olivia tries to pay Violet for the message, [INAUDIBLE] keep your money. I'm not a pig feet post, and Olivia's swoons over, [LAUGH] no servant has ever turned me down for money before. I think that's a little hook right here, that kind of gets it. >> And boy can Viola talk, she gets off of the grid. Of the melancholy lover the standard Sonic talk as Rachel was saying, and when she does that, Olivia, she is thunderstruck. So that's another way that nobody's talked to her before. >> Right. >> So when Viola says if I did love you in my master's flame with such a suffering such a deadly life in your denial, I would find no sense, I would not understand it. And Olivia wants to know, what would you do? And so she has this incredible speech about what she would do. She would make a willow cabin at her gate and stay there and halo, your name to the reverberate hills and make the babbling gossip of the air cry out, Olivia. Man. >> Who wouldn't fall in love? >> Who wouldn't fall in love? >> I do much. >> Yeah. >> [LAUGH] >> Well, is she saying that thinking about Olivia or she's saying that, is she getting lost in thought, turning her thoughts towards Orsino, and then re-gathering herself back into the scene. These are the choices that lead in all these different paths down there, because it doesn't make sense. [LAUGH] It doesn't make literal sense to launch into that little, to have lost yourself for a moment in high poetry. And those are the options and choices that Shakespeare gives you to take these scenes, wherever you need them to go. >> I think at the same time I agree with you that Olivia is falling in love with Cesario's candor, but at the same time, I'm constantly reminded in this play and many others Shakespeare has characters act. >> Yes. >> So Cesario is acting, and i think that's part of the charm too for Olivia is that she's like, whoa, this is masculinity like, whoa! Which, the regular guys come in, whatever, and- >> Read the rehearsed speech, yeah. >> And here's somebody making it up on the spot and then that happens in other places in the play of Shakespeare purposely is saying, this is the character, but now they're acting to be something else. >> Right. >> And this love of performing, and- >> And perhaps discovering something new about themselves in the process. >> Yeah. And so, and then how does the an playing the woman playing the man referenced all the bad [LAUGH] >> And Viola's trying to do as good a job as you possibly can for her boss that she's falling for. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And how fun it must have been to see two dudes playing these roles, both dressed as women, but one of them dress as a woman impersonating a man. And, all of the comedy that can come out of that. >> It must have been hilarious. >> And super smart too, both of these characters. So they're kind of Yeah. >> Kind of edging around each other. Well, what do you got, both of them are a little bit that way. >> Yeah, but it's not playing for low comedy. These are two very well educated people matching wits. >> And matching passions. Yeah, I go back to what you said about how the title of this play is Twelfth Night and this idea, this question of what is real and what is madness? And what is sanity? And when am I myself and when are we performing? When are we in disguise? I think it's all over the whole canon, but it's all over this play. >> And I think Shakespeare taking advantage of that, okay, here we have a kind of a classic Twelfth Night topsy turvy world. High born woman's going to fall in love with a servant, but then he totally messes with that during the speech. And so it's not going to be played for low comedy it actually becomes a passion and marriage of wits. >> Yeah. >> There was a scene when Malvolio brings news in that there's this person who's arrived. Cesario's at the gate bearing the message from Orsino. And Malvolio says, there's this person who's really being rude and he won't go away. He wont take no for an answer and Olivia says, what kind of man is he? Malvolio says, why, of mankind. [LAUGH] And Olivia says what manner of man? And Malvolio says, a very ill manner, he'll speak with you, will you or no. Olivia, of what personage and years is he? Olivia trying to get an answer and then her steward finally delivers. Not yet old enough for a man or young enough for a boy, as a squash is before tis a peascod or a codling when tis almost an apple. Tis with him in standing water, between boy and man. He is very well-favored, and he speaks very shrewishly. One would think his mother's milk were scarce out of him. And then Olivia says, let him approach. >> [LAUGH] >> There seemed to be something in that description that captures Olivia's fancy. I'm wondering what it is. >> It doesn't quite all make sense or add up. Malvolio's being his normal hesitant self and not very cooperative. But I think there's like many conflicting little, he's a man, but he's speaks with a very small voice. And he's not quite a man or a boy. I can't really tell what he is. Well, let's get a look, I think is her response. That's a very surface read. >> Something different, she wants something different. >> Yeah. >> Anything, she's bored. People keep coming to her, people from Orsino and keep giving her the same, >> Right. >> Standard stuff. >> Somebody new. >> Somebody new who looks different from the others. >> In this small town. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Yeah, I think that actually fits that sort of really resonates with sort of what Kevin was saying earlier the sense that this is somebody who just kind of were pushing through the conventions, pushing through the memorized speech, into something that's more improvisational. That's this kind of, there's more of a connection there. Just struck rereading this scene, how many questions there are. That's something that Orsino in act one, scene one is not interested in at all. His servant says she's not interested in, she's not taking any lovers for seven years. And Orsino hears no, she says no and he hears yes, that's going to be so great. She's perfect for me. >> [LAUGH] >> And there seems to be this kind of real just desire for the improvisational give and take. Almost as a kind of improvisational theater. Invention in the moment of sort of trying to figure out who this other person is. As you say, Viola is actually not always that nice. She says, I see you and I know you, you're really proud. You're a proud person and that just seems to, I'm sure as saying, she's never heard this before. [LAUGH] That disrupts, here we are outside of any kind of conventional relationship, conventional social situation >> Well, as you're talking, I'm remembering one of the conversations we had with the actors, they were talking a lot about how everyone is stuck in Olivia's household in grief and the mourning. And here you have these two young people come in to get back to your comment about the youth of both siblings. And how they just breathe life into this stuck household. That was a really interesting perspective. That was Emma Messanger who played Maria who had a really interesting perspective on this world and on Orsino. In act one, scene one, she saw it from the perspective of a servant, someone who doesn't get to make any decisions who has to live on the terms that the nobles are setting here. And as you say, Kevin, her point was that this is a world that's stuck. It's static, it's not going anywhere and Orsino in act one scene one gets all cranked up. And then he says, I'll go off and lay in a bed of flowers. Love thought fly rich with canopy with. Nothing's going to happen. >> [LAUGH] >> For seven years. >> And you're right, this is a moment where there's actually something happens. >> Great observation that Emma, I wish we brought that up in rehearsal. >> [LAUGH] >> Could base a whole production off of that idea alone. >> Yeah. >> I'm thinking of Trevor Nunn's film of Twelfth Night where he sets it in a kind of early Victorian kind of hard to tell, but it's a Victorian mourning which is serious business. >> That was a gloomy- >> You follow all the rules until it's time to be done. And it's so constricting. >> Yeah. >> So this scene ends, well, actually, the scene doesn't end, but once Olivia and Viola, Olivia says, well, I'm not interested in Orsino's love. But tell him I don't want to see him anymore, but you can come back, >> [LAUGH] >> And deliver more messages. And then she leaves. Viola says, Olivia tries to give her money as Tim is talking about and Viola says no, I'm no feed post, lady. Keep your purse and then leaves, farewell fair cruelty. And then Olivia is on stage alone reflecting on the conversation. What is your parentage? Above my fortunes, yet my status well, I am a gentleman. I'll be sworn thou art, thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit do give thee fivefold blazon. Not too fast, soft, soft. Unless the master were the man. How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague. Me thinks I feel this youth's perfections with an invisible and subtle stealth to creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be. >> [LAUGH] >> What's happening here? I mean, Olivia is narrating her experience and sort of expositing for the audience what's going on. What is going on here? [LAUGH] >> She knows she's going to be okay as long as it's a gentleman. >> Yeah. >> She can be in love with somebody she's not even sure if they're a boy or a man or what. And of course it's a woman, but as long as there are the same class, it's okay. She can live with it. >> Yeah, there's a lot of unknowns, but that she needs to be clear on because she's not going to embarrass herself. >> I always take that line. What is your parentage? Is that moment where you've been in the conversation and then you come back to it afterwards and you kind of relive that moment? What is your parentage? >> [LAUGH] >> Right. >> I can't believe I say >> That's exactly how Mark Rylance plays it in the globe version >> Yeah, right >> In this play, which is brilliant actually. Just really it's, it's not only the rehearsal. It starts immediately, sort of the talking [LAUGH about this highly eroticly charged exchange. But it's also trying to assess that and Rylance says it brilliantly in precisely the way that you described, Rachel. >> Well, and I think Shakespeare also, he wants to make his plays actorproof. So just in case you thought you were going to play that scene a different way, no, she's got to fall in love with him. >> Yeah. >> And so that little monologue just clarifies, there's really no interpretation to that first scene. If you're playing Olivia, you've got to fall in love, because then you've got that soliloquy and you've got to live up to it. >> Yeah. >> That's right. >> I'm head over heels. So I think Shakespeare makes this plays actorproof. >> [LAUGH] That's great. >> What do you make of the language of plague? >> That's back very quickly. [LAUGH] >> That's right. How now even so quickly may one touch the plague? >> I mean, If love is contagion, who knows what's going to happen in the rest of this play? Honestly. >> Yeah. >> Anything could happen. Which opens the gates to all kinds of things. Now is going to start thinking man, maybe maybe my mistress maybe that'll work. He's wrong of course, but >> we don't know that >> we don't know that and the. The language of plagues as well everybody can catch it. >> That's right. >> And it will grow and get worse [LAUGH] in you or it will grow in you the symptoms will pile up again. >> Well and then we, when we get later to Sebastian and Antonio, there's more contagion. >> That's right. >> And people seem to catch it immediately. You take careful of my money? Sure. >> Yeah. Yeah, and Toby and Mariah. >> Yeah. >> At the end, as well. That's great. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, it starts to spread throughout. Only like survives, gets out. >> Would you say it's also a way of disclaiming responsibility? I just caught this. >> Right. >> Disease. [LAUGH] >> It's not my fault. >> Not my fault, yeah, yeah. >> Right, mm-hm. >> Yep, I'm not in control. >> I'm not in control. >> Well, when you want to have it, Sir Andrew, you can't get it. >> Right. >> He wants to have it, but can't catch it. >> [LAUGH] Yeah. [CROSSTALK] Poor Sir Andrew. >> I know [LAUGH] He can't buy it. >> He tries. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, I love that. And I think in many ways, again, coming back to the point that was made earlier, I can't remember was it this discussion or we're talking about of that statement from Bottom. You know. Love and reason keep little company together nowadays. What he said was really wonderful is both a commentary on love as a non rational phenomenon. It's irrational, you can't intend to fall in love it's just you know it's completely beyond anybody's volition, but it's also. She's negotiating the fact that she had just committed to mourning for 70 years. >> [LAUGH] >> And I love that she's kind of producing an account that says well, let it be. I mean, that's the way it is, I must proceed this way. So it does give her, she does In a way, it's deeper self permission to sort of let go of her attachment to death. To her of dead family members and start up her narrative.
