Introduction to Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night is a comedy play mostly about love. It begins with Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, Orsino, declaring his love for Olivia, the Countess. However, the countess is not too interested as she is still grieving the death of her brother who passed away which she is still struggling to come to terms with. A shipwrecked Viola thinks she is alone as she thinks her brother Sebastian has drowned in the wreck. Deciding to work for the Duke, Orsino, Viola decides to disguise herself as man names Cesario in order to be able to work for him, and then Viola finds herself falling for the Duke, although she is still disguised as a man and can not act on her feelings. One of the Dukes first orders is to deliver a message To Countess Olivia on behalf of the Duke himself, but Cesario (Viola) is in for a shock as Olivia actually falls for Cesario, even removing her vail which she has been wearing since her brothers passing to grieve. Later on, little love triangle has formed as Olivia loves Orsino, Orsino loves Olivia and Olivia loves Cesario.

Although Sebastian, Olivia's brother, who is in fact still alive, but instead believes Viola to be dead, arrives in Illyria, and with Antonio, who has been looking after Sebastian. After a lot of confusion with other characters getting Sebastian and Cesario mixed up, all the truth eventually comes out in the end after Olivia marries Sebastian thinking that she married Cesario and Viola finally comes clean to the Duke and the Duke then falls in love with Viola, and it all runs smooth in the end. 

We are performing a scene from both The Tempest and Twelfth night. In The Tempest, I play a young Miranda who is sweet and innocent. Therefore, when acting out a scene from Twelfth Night, I wanted a character that would completely contrast with the character from The Tempest, and when speaking to Jess, she wanted to do the same, so we paired up and looked through the play together to agree on a significant scene to perform together. We ended up choosing Scene 5 from Act 1. In this scene, this is where Olivia falls in love with Cesario. Jess is playing Viola and I am playing Olivia, as I feel Olivia is completely opposite to Miranda in The Tempest; Olivia is a noblewoman, and hides herself away from the world, although she is aware of all that goes on, she knows that although she gets plenty of attention from the men in the play, the majority want to marry her just for her wealth and status.