Twefth Night

‘Twelfth Night’ Viola’s ring speech: how you would direct the scene.

In this essay, I will be saying how I would direct Act II scene 2 in ‘Twelfth Night’. So far, Viola has been shipwrecked and ended up on an island called Illyria. She dressed up as a male to get a job and calls herself Cesario. She gets a job for the Duke Orsino. Duke Orsino tells her to go to speak to Olivia, who is in mourning for her brother who has been dead for seven years. When Viola leaves, Olivia sends Malvolio, her companion to give Olivia a ring.
In Act II scene2, there are two characters in this scene. Firstly, Malvolio is chasing Viola to give her the ring. I imagine that Malvolio is a tall middle aged man. Viola us receiving the ring from Malvolio wondering why Olivia is giving it to her. I imagined Viola (Cesario) would be in her twenties or early thirties with long, dark brown hair (this is before she got it cut). After she got it cut I would imagine it quite short, and quite a floppy hair style. She would be average sized with brown eyes.
In this scene, Malvolio is giving the ring back to Viola and Viola won't accept it. This makes Malvolio annoyed which makes him throw down the ring, saying, ‘If it be worth stopping for, there it lies [throws the ring down] the ring in your eye; or if not, be it his that he finds it.’ If I were to direct this scene I would make Malvolio throw the ring down in front of her and walk away. He would need to think about feeling happy and smug because he is returning ‘Orsino’s’ ring because he wishes someday that he will be able to marry his mistress, Olivia. He would also have to think about feeling a bit annoyed because he had to go all that way to catch up with Cesario to give back a ring which Cesario doesn’t accept. As for Viola, she is the one receiving the ring, all confused and says a whole speech about it. When she says ‘None of my lords ring? Why, he sent her none.’ Tells us that Orsino never sent Olivia a ring, but Olivia has fallen... [continues]

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