Below is my Director’s interpretation of one part of Twelfth Night, Act 1 Scene 5. For a marked-up/annotated script, see here.

After Viola claims that what she has to say is profanity to all other ears, but divinity to Olivia’s, she gets her time alone with Olivia. The exchange between them changes, from prose to verse, and ultimately, Olivia falls in love with Viola (disguised as Cesario) onstage.

OLIVIA
Now, sir, what is your text?
VIOLA
Most sweet lady,–
OLIVIA
A comfortable doctrine, and much may be said of it.
Where lies your text?
VIOLA
In Orsino’s bosom.
OLIVIA
In his bosom! In what chapter of his bosom?
VIOLA
To answer by the method, in the first of his heart.
OLIVIA
O, I have read it: it is heresy. Have you no more to
say?

At this point, Viola is perhaps starting to get fed up by Olivia’s aloof arrogance–that she would brush off her dear Orsino’s heart so easily as heresy. Next, off comes the veil, demands Viola–things are about to get more personal.

VIOLA
Good Madam, let me see your face.
OLIVIA
Have you any Commission from your Lord, to negotiate
with my face: you are now out of your Text: but we
will draw the Curtain, and show you the picture.
Olivia lifts her veil.
Look you sir, such a one I was this present: Ist not
well done?
VIOLA
Excellently done, if God did all.

I imagine Viola’s annoyance is now evident on her voice; she might sound almost as if sarcastic, definitely incredulous. Olivia, like Orsino, is rather self-centered especially now, and Olivia is already fond of Cesario (to lift her veil) considering the idea that she’s lifting her veil for Cesario, and not the Duke.

OLIVIA
‘Tis in graine sir, ’twill endure winde and weather.

Olivia begins to reveal more of her arrogance towards her own appearance, saying that her beauty will last as if engraved in stone–through wind and weather (and time).

VIOLA
Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white,
Nature’s own sweet, and cunning hand laid on:
Lady, you are the cruel’st she alive,
If you will lead these graces to the grave,
And leave the world no copy.

Viola here echoes one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, where the argument goes to support that one should have progeny if only to pass on their beauty.

OLIVIA
O sir, I will not be so hard-hearted: I will give out
divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be Inventoried
and every particle and utensil label’d to my will: As
item two lips indifferent red, Item two grey eyes,
with lids to them; Item: one neck, one chin, and so
forth. Were you sent hither to praise me?

Olivia’s irreverence has made her arrogance become blatant, here–as if these aspects of her features are inanimate objects that can be labeled and put away. (But, the interesting part here is that one can interpret it as if she believes that future generations could “re-assemble” her beauty through an inventory listing; this is essentially what bioengineering’s ultimate goal is, and what a steampunk interpretation of this production might emphasize. Olivia and Viola could then be on the opposite ends in a spectrum of humanity, with Olivia appearing more machine-like, and Viola, in contrast, very human. We’re not doing steampunk, btw.)

VIOLA
I see what you are; you are too proud:
But if you were the devil, you are fair.
My Lord, and master loves you: O such love
Could not be recompenc’d, though you were crown’d
The nonparaeil of beauty.

Viola now claims that Olivia’s beauty is basically no match against Orsino’s love. Olivia might reply with a bit of incredulity, at this point:

Olivia: How does he love me?

Viola: With adorations, fertile tears,
With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.

OLIVIA
Your Lord does know my mind, I cannot love him
Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,
Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth;
In voices well divulg’d, free, and valiant,
And in dimension, and the shape of nature,
A gracious person; but yet I cannot love him:
He might have took his answer long ago.

Olivia goes into verse. It’s almost as if she’s reading a form mail of a love rejection letter.

VIOLA
If I did love you in my master’s flame,
With such a suff’ring, such a deadly life:
In your denial, I would find no sense,
I would not understand it.

This incites Olivia’s interest. (Indeed, she seems to have a thing for the underdog–so, perhaps, she’s already developed a fondness for Viola.)

Olivia: Why, what would you?

VIOLA
Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house,
Write loyal cantons of condemned love,
And sing them loud even in the dead of night:
Hallow your name to the reverberate hills,
And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out Olivia: O you should not rest
Between the element of air, and earth,
But you should pity me.

OLIVIA
You might do much.
What is your parentage?

Note that Olivia completes Viola’s pentameter perfectly. Olivia reacts very profoundly to Viola’s words–in fact, she’s fallen in love with Viola on stage. Next, she takes a breath of a pause, catching her wits, testing to make sure Viola’s a good match for her.

VIOLA
Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:
I am a Gentleman.

Viola has to lie a bit, so I imagine she says her second line almost too quickly.

OLIVIA
Get you to your Lord:
I cannot love him: let him send no more,
Unless perchance you come to me again,
To tell me how he takes it: fare you well:
I thank you for your pains: spend this for me.

Olivia tests Viola again. Olivia seems unaware of how rude the gesture appears to be from Viola’s POV

VIOLA
I am no feed post, Lady; keep your purse,
My master not myself, lacks recompence.
Love make his heart of flint, that you shall love,
And let your fervour, like my master’s, be,
Plac’d in contempt: farewell fair cruelty.

Viola’s rudeness is, again, apparent, as she leaves. (Though we know Feste’s impertinence is more to do with his act as a fool, Olivia seems to have a natural affinity towards the rude ones.)

Tags: love, Olivia, Viola

Although Malvolio is not present onstage in the previous exchange between Viola and Olivia, he, like other servants, are within earshot, awaiting Olivia. I would assume he’s heard the bits he wants to hear, basically that Olivia doesn’t like Cesario. In the first exchange between Malvolio and Olivia earlier in the scene, Malvolio erringly puts Cesario’s foot in Olivia’s door. Now, in the reprise, he’s glad that Olivia seems to wish to spurn him.

I imagine that Malvolio nearly completes Olivia’s pentameter in her previous soliloquy, “What ho, Malvolio,” except he stumbles a bit, perhaps daydreaming about how much better he himself is to Cesario. There’s a very fatal ego in Malvolio already present even in his two lines in Act 1’s finale.

Malvolio: Here, Madam, at your service.

Olivia: Run after that same peevish Messenger
The County’s man: He left this ring behind him,
Would I, or not: tell him, I’ll none of it.
Desire him not to flatter with his Lord,
Nor hold him up with hopes, I am not for him.
If that the youth will come this way tomorrow,
I’ll give him reasons for’t: hie thee Malvolio.

Notice the trace of uncertainty in the eleventh syllable, as Olivia flat out lies in the second line, in the feminine ending. The following two eleven syllable lines (with ending words marked in bold) have masculine endings, as she’s rather certain about the thought there–she’s not at all for Orsino!

Malvolio: Madam, I will.

Malvolio exits swiftly, to catch up to Cesario, and also because he’s maybe slightly jubilant–however happy someone like Malvolio can be!

Olivia: I know not what, and fear to find
Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind:
Fate, show thy force, our selves we do not owe,
What is decreed, must be: and be this so.

Olivia also swiftly begins her soliloquy, right after Malvolio’s 4 syllable line. It’s in a fluid rush, like the flow of love in this act. She swoons and defers to fate. What else can she do?

Tags: Malvolio, Olivia

Malvolio re-enters with news of Cesario. Notice how he doesn’t pass judgment on this young pageboy until Olivia asks him. Before this exchange, Malvolio had been reproached by Olivia for taking a fool too seriously. He introduces the subject of Cesario very matter of factly, almost as if he were following procedure in wishing off an embassy:

MALVOLIO
Madam, yond young fellow swears he will speak with you.
I told him you were sick, he takes on him to
understand so much, and therefore comes to speak with
you. I told him you were asleep, he seems to have a
fore knowledge of that too, and therefore comes to
speak with you. What is to be said to him, Lady, he’s
fortified against any denial.

I think Malvolio is actually exasperated as he recounts this stubborn Cesario to Olivia, so that by the time he says, “Lady, he’s fortified against any denial,” he’s asking for both Olivia’s permission to send Cesario away and her sympathy.

Olivia: Tell him, he shall not speak with me.

Malvolio: He’s been told so: and he says he’ll stand at your
door like a Sheriff’s post, and be the supporter to a
bench, but he’ll speak with you.

Malvolio reveals foolishness, here, in demanding more sympathy from Olivia than the situation deserves. If he were to nod and leave, and not make the situation more difficult (and non-standard-procedure) than it is, he wouldn’t have invoked Olivia’s curiosity–and for want of other idleness–her interest.

Olivia: What kind of man is he?

Malvolio: Why of man kind…

This isn’t just Malvolio being coy. He’s actually starting to realize his folly–dear God, she can’t be interested in this young peascod, can she?

Olivia: What manner of man?

Malvolio: Of very ill manner: he’ll speak with you, will you, or
no.

It appears that what Malvolio finds repugnant, Olivia finds interesting (shouldn’t he have caught on already, with Feste, earlier):

Olivia: Of what personage and years is he?

Malvolio perhaps smiles as he gives Olivia what he hopes to be a verbal painting of a pathetic personage:

Malvolio: Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a
boy: as a squash 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-favour’d
and he speaks very shrewishly: One would think his
mother’s milk were scarce out of him.

Malvolio seems a horrible judge of character. Of course, the Lady Olivia, for want of other idleness, would be interested in a young boy.

Olivia: Let him approach: Call in my Gentlewoman

Malvolio: Gentlewoman, my Lady calls.

I imagine Malvolio would leave muttering to himself, as Maria enters. Now he has more than Feste to worry about.

Tags: Malvolio, Olivia

 Below is my Director’s interpretation of one part of Twelfth Night, Act 1 Scene 5. For a marked-up/annotated script, see here.

Malvolio’s opening line in Act 1 is a stark contrast to that of everyone else’s before him. Although Maria has a similar scolding attitude, she relents to humor (eventually), but Malvolio seems stubbornly bitter to a huge degree–he’s almost immediately seen as the story’s villain, though later Acts will turn him into a villain. Thus, I believe Malvolio has to act apparently malevolently bitter, but that’s really just a coverup for a sort of tragic hidden inferiority inherent in him.

Olivia: What think you of this fool Malvolio, does he not mend?

Malvolio: Yes, and shall do, till the pangs of death shake him:
Infirmity that decays the wise, doth ever make the
better fool.

Feste: God send you sir, a speedy Infirmity, for the better
increasing your folly: Sir Toby will be sworn that I
am no Fox, but he will not pass his word for two pence
that you are no Fool.

Malvolio’s humor is immediately seen as politically incorrect from our modern POV, when he makes his joke based on Feste’s age. Even in Shakespeare’s days, this is perhaps seen as a foul kind of joke–but, I imagine Malvolio says this matter of factly. (Indeed, the entire exchange can be seen from Malvolio’s POV as an insult to his Lady Olivia–with Feste just being rude all the way through. Feste’s rudeness seems to foreshadow Viola’s, and in the end, it seems as if Olivia seems to favor the rude ones…)

Feste replies in that Feste-logic that Malvolio could use a bit more humor in him–to become a more foolish fool–so he hopes Malvolio would grow old and senile sooner.

Olivia: How say you to that Malvolio?

Malvolio: I marvel your Ladyship takes delight in such a barren
rascal: I saw him put down the other day, with an
ordinary fool, that has no more brain than a stone.
Look you now, he’s out of his guard already; unless
you laugh and minister occasion to him, he is gag’d. I
protest I take these Wisemen, that crow so at these
set kind of fools, no better than the fools’ Zanies.

Malvolio continues to ridicule Feste’s wit; after all, he’d just been called a fool himself by Feste! After citing that Feste got verbally owned by a fool dumber than a rock, he claims that Feste’s not funny at all unless someone gives him charity of laughter. Notice how viciously Malvolio returns Feste’s “joke”. I believe he’s acting this way not only because Olivia seems to be letting Feste make fun of her (and him), but also out of jealousy. He’s already developed an affinity towards Olivia, and would rather not have her favor someone so un-worthwhile as this fool.

Olivia: Oh you are sick of self-love Malvolio, and taste with
a distemper’d appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and
of free disposition, is to take these things for Birdbolts
that you deem Cannon bullets: there is no
slander in an allow’d fool, though he do nothing but
rayle; nor no railing, is a known discreet man, though
he do nothing but reprove.

Olivia begins by reproaching Malvolio, and explains why she let Feste make fun of her. She understands that Feste’s joking–and yet Malvolio takes his joke seriously.

Feste: Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speak’st
well of fools.

Tags: feste, Feste's logic, Malvolio, Olivia

 Below is my Director’s interpretation of one part of Twelfth Night, Act 1 Scene 5. For a marked-up/annotated script, see here.

Feste opens this segment with an aside, where he openly tells the audience his fears of being not witty enough–and then regains his jovial self when he remembers he can make up deities and adages on-the-go from his behind a la Quinapalus.

Feste: God bless thee Lady.

Olivia: Take the fool away.

Feste: Do you not hear fellows, take away the Lady.

Olivia: Go to, y’are a dry fool: I’ll no more of you: besides
you grow dishonest.

Feste seems to be testing his luck–calling his Lady the fool? It’s interesting, though, that Olivia cites Feste’s truancy second to his dry wit.

Feste: Two faults Madonna, that drink and good counsel will
amend: for give the dry fool drink, then is the fool
not dry: bid the dishonest man mend himself, if he
mend, he is no longer dishonest; if he cannot, let the
Butcher mend him: anything that’s mended, is but
patch’d: virtue that transgresses, is but patcht with
sin, and sin that amends, is but patcht with virtue.
If that this simple Syllogism will serve, so: if it will
not, what remedy? As there is no true Cuckold but
calamity, so beauties a flower; The Lady bade take
away the foole, therefore I say againe, take her away.

Olivia: Sir, I bid them take away you.

At this point, we are really not certain if the fool’s still got his wits–this simple syllogism is amusing, but its aloof logic (similar to Feste’s hanging jokes) also puts to question the state of his mind.

Feste: Misprision is the highest degree. Lady, cucullus non
facit monachum: that’s as much to say, as I were not
motley in my brain: good Madonna, give me leave to
prove you a fool.

And now, it seems Feste is smarter than we think. His past few lines are actually building to a point.

Olivia: Can you do it?

Feste: Dexterously, good Madonna.

Olivia: Make your proof.

Feste: I must catechize you for it Madonna: good my Mouse of
virtue answer me.

Olivia: Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I’ll bide your
proof.

Feste: Good Madonna, why mournst thou?

Olivia: Good fool, for my brother’s death

Feste: I think his soul is in hell, Madonna.

Olivia: I know his soul is in heaven, fool.

Feste: The more fool - Madonna - to mourn for your Brother’s
soul, being in heaven. Take away the Fool, Gentlemen.

Feste begins explaining why the Lady Olivia is actually the fool, but catechizes her — asks for her involvement; Olivia admits she’s nothing better to do, and will thus entertain him. He goes right to the point, asking very directly why she mourns for her brother. His next line is said almost as if he wishes to be fired–but, only if we believe she were absolutely serious about devoting her life to mourning. This, along with Sir Toby’s opening line in Scene 3, helps establish that Olivia may be prone to leave her mourning if given adequate “entertainment.” Feste’s next line, continues the same sort of Feste-logic that believes hanging may be better than a bad marriage, by saying it’s no point in mourning for her brother if he’s in Heaven.

Tags: feste, Feste's logic, Olivia

An interpretive conjectural rendering of Olivia and her brother.
Enter Olivia with her brother Oliver.

(This painting is also used in the set of SL Shakespeare Company’s Twelfth Night, Act 1, Scene 5)

Tags: conjectural, oliver, Olivia

The Characterization of a SL production creates the image and visual character of the players. Since, there are basically no limitations in appearances in Second Life (lag allowing), it typically involves considering both the original character, as well as whom you have available. It’s also akin to playing God by breathing life into the avatar representation of a play’s character –or, at the very least, it’s making the PR images look pretty. Artistic Director’s notes on each character below:

• Cesario: “Shakespeare’s Mulan, except her battle is in finding her fate and identity in the land she becomes shipwrecked in.” ~age 14, in that awkward interface between boy and man, young enough to be a “squash before a peascod or a Codling almost an Apple, his mother’s milk scarce out of him”. Youthful and naive, such that she’d choose to serve Olivia just because of their common loss of a brother to Elysium, but chooses to serve the Duke–as an eunuch, not bothering to think much over the problems that course of action may lead to; of upper class parentage, and of wealth as evidenced in her attitude with money–prone to give it for good words, and prone to reject it out of honor. Though she’s Viola in disguise, she can still make it as a cute young boy. Yet, there’s sadness in her eyes, for like the Lady Olivia she is assigned to woo, she, too, mourns the loss of a brother. But, that doesn’t stop her from attempting to do the best of what she can at her job–she’s young, outgoing and optimistic, direct and yet very delicate: “very comptible, even to the least sinister usage.”
  • Interestingly, as the Duke’s messenger, she seems to echo the basic meaning of one of the Bard’s sonnets, especially in her inquiry to Lady Olivia that her seclusion-in-mourning is an undue cruelness to the world, which would be without her beauty, “Lady, you are the cruel’st she alive, if you will lead these graces to the grave, and leave the world no copy.”
• Feste: “The embodiment of comic relief, his words often dispense some very perceptive insights on characters.” He’s an old clown, and as wit dwindles with age, perhaps he’s less wanted by the haughty Olivia. But, though he invokes the fancy-sounding but essentially no-namer Quinapalus in trying to justify a point, he beseeches the Lady Olivia: “Cucullus non facit monachum,” or “Don’t judge a monk by his cloak,” and goes on to prove her wrong, by making fun of her mourning (were Olivia less valley-girl-ish, she might have taken this as a grave insult). Yet, it’s interesting how he so-easily shows Olivia’s fickleness; she’s angry, at him, and calls for people to take him away, but he soon changes her perspective (perhaps foreshadowing her change when Cesario comes in), “Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou
  speakst well of fools!”
  • Why was he gone for so long, and for how long? Seven years missing, like the Bard himself?
  • In S5, Feste takes out the drunk madman and leaves Act 1. Goes with Feste’s theory of draughts in explaining what a drunk man’s like:
    “Like a drowned man, a fool and a mad man: / One draught above heat makes him a fool; / the second mads him; and a third drowns him.”
• Duke Orsino: “The man in power in love with the concept of love itself.” Duke of Illyria, but not fettered with political matters, he’s greatly trusting, such that he’ll bestow the fruit of love itself to music and this new young eunuch, which a native Captain of the land introduces to him. Love is a distraction he’s willing to binge on — for him to avoid a melancholy of uncertain origins, that causes him to realize in the midst of a great speech praising the sweetness of love that it’s all too fleeting. In age, he’s the opposite of Cesario–of a venerable age for dukedom, and perhaps that’s why he casts favor on Cesario over Valentine, “a nuncio of more grave aspect.”
  • Might the actor who played Olivia also have been the one who played Orsino? He never seems to speak directly and in person to Olivia. O…
• Olivia: “As her name implies olive, or Homer’s ‘liquid gold,’ she is the female embodiment of the alchemist’s gold–for Orsino, the perfect vision of love, whom he sends envoys to but never gets to know–but like liquid mercury in how she changes her affections.” Of noble birth and of a decent inheritance, shallow in her fleeting obsession with mourning her lost brother–or perhaps she merely brings up on the seven years of eye-offending brine to ward off Valentine and Orsino. Stereotypical upper class who’d listen to an old clown or an unknown embassy for want of something more interesting to do. Beautiful by most standards, and yet Cesario/Viola should stand out. Arrogant enough to disregard her own beauty into an inventory list. Appearance: Fair, blonde, gray-eyes. In mourning clothing (black - as this is not an era-specific production), even if her attitude changes from mourning to loving at the end of act 1. Mischievous, with the coin trick, but not as much as Maria in Act 2.
  • Her name is nearly an anagram of Viola, but sans i.
• Malvolio: Bitter and infinitely envious of others, arrogant, wishes to be the spotlight himself. Act 1 does not reveal that much of Malvolio’s character yet, but the way he responds to Feste the Fool in Scene 5 with Olivia shows an undue meanness, the words of which at such a moment may be enough for Feste to seriously hate him enough to pull the cruel prank on him in later scenes. (Feste is trying to convince Olivia to re-hire him, and this is the worst time for Malvolio’s deprecating words.) About him, there’s the quintessential insolence of a butler, who sometimes believes he’s the lord of the house.
• Toby: The Sot of Illyria! ~age 25, but appearing literally a teenager in both self and form (in this interpretation). He’s clever, and makes me laugh more than Feste (at least in Act 1). But, why does a man–a noble–resort to drinking and staying drunk all the time? It’s escapism of a liquid sort, to dull one’s consciousness into a constant stream of drunken euphoria, avoiding a deep and bitter melancholy. Money, perchance? Sir Toby inherits the title of a noble, and yet no money, such that he’s reduced to flattering (and using) the better-endowed Sir Andrew for need of his 3000 ducats a year. Would it be too strange for him to marry the venerable-aged Maria? “Nay, but what’s a drunken man like?”
• Maria: Just an old servant woman who complains a lot until we get to Act 2. But, you do see a bit of her cleverness manifest even in Act 1, in her response to Feste’s “two points,” “That if one breaks, the other will hold; or if both breaks, your gaskins will fall.” and also her potential cruelness, when she snickers condescendingly at the young bare-peascod Cesario, all alone beneath the the house right balcony in Olivia’s house. (It’s all latent in her coyote-hazel eyes.) Does she look like Gertrude from Hamlet — perhaps they’re blood, but she’s just a servants woman in Illyria for this show! (What’s that hting with Toby and Maria, though?)
• Andrew: “The Tall Tale of a Man, and yet not really…” - rich but vulnerable and comic relief by himself. Clueless but with fine-breeding from ample education, money and class. Loves revels and masques, sometimes both at once. Believes in dirty accost-ing. 3000 ducats a year, and he can be manipulated and brown-nosed by a certain Falstaffian sot. Tall (or at least as tall as Toby or his top hat). Hair fine and thin as if from a distaff, un-frizzled at all.
• Captain: Though he appears only in a single scene, his role in introducing Cesario as an eunuch to land Viola her job with the Duke Orsino is crucial in moving the story along. He connects this shipwrecked squash-before-a-peascode with a means to go about a way in Illyria. In that respect, this character should look distinctly familiar. Thus, his face is the splitting image of the Ghost in Hamlet (SL Shakespeare Company’s inaugural production), although his body is more towards the bulkier side, being a well-fed ship-captain and all.
• Valentine: “The original embassy of love to Olivia from Orsino. And yet this Valentine of sorts is a graver nuncio [than Viola-Cesario].” Moor by birth (director’s interpretation), but loyal to his Duke, and carries out his commands. Yet, though once young, he’s already a man by age, and, perhaps that gets the lesser of him, especially when a new young eunuch comes to replace him. But, he’s honorable and does give Cesario good advice. Dress - similar to Cesario’s, but perhaps in less vibrant colors.
• Curio: “The Duke’s Young Cousin” Other interpretations have taken Curio as a lord who takes Orsino’s words as less serious and lofty, and perhaps a bit in low jest — the hunt and the hart as double entendres. Due to casting, my interpretation is to just have him be either a young-ish cousin of the Duke’s, who’s staying there and enjoying the feast of a hart, and anxious that his uncle go out hunting to replenish the feast. His words are thus nothing but the literal. He’s a chubby little boy with a gruff-ish voice who just wants more hart! Hark, the boy wants hart, the food! The music can be there or not, he cares not for the heart!
• Viola: “Shipwrecked, lost, but determined to find her way.” Shipwrecked, her brother gone, lost in the strange land of Illyria. A quintessential sadness in her eyes, as well as face capable of conveying the ample spirit needed to find her way in this new land. Her facial bone shape should be easy to masquerade as a young boy, with or without the obvious length of hair. Ideally, dressed in a tattered purple dress–color of royalty or great wealth, but marred by a shipwreck, now mayhaps to suffer the fate of a commoner. (See Cesario)

Tags: !Twelfth Night, Andrew, AP1, Captain, Cesario, characters, Curio, Duke Orsino, feste, Malvolio, Maria, Olivia, Orsino, Toby, Valentine, Viola

When you’re working on a virtually non-existent budget, you have to be pretty sharp with things. Though our costumed tag-team staged reading series this summer did cast more actors than we’d need (as well as the upcoming audio book and act-along-karoke versions), not all actors are available for the show this season. In case we don’t have a Toby, we might just cut out his few lines of “letcherie” in Twelfth Night, Act 1 Scene 5. We’ll just have a silent actor “step in” while appearing “drunk” and collapse. The skip will start from after Olivia’s “By mine honor half drunk” and end at “Toby’s Well, it’s all one (inclusive)”, to omit Toby’s voice parts and yet appear seamless. Olivia and Feste can still have their little aside on drunkenness, and Feste can still leave escorting Toby out. (In which case, Feste’s voice will likely also be the voice for Toby.)

Tags: !Twelfth Night, cuts, drunkenness, feste, letcherie, Olivia, prompt-book, Toby