Shakespeare's Women in Drag: Viola

Lee Lady

William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night or What You Will
D. J. Palmer (editor), Twelfth Night: A Casebook

Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
Jan Kott, Shakespeare Our Contemporary
Martin Holmes, Shakespeare's Public
Albert Bermel, Shakespeare at the Moment: Playing the Comedies
Philip Brockbank (editor), Players of Shakespeare, 1
John Palmer, Comic Characters of Shakespeare

Twelfth Night in a way, is almost the opposite of As You Like It. Whereas Rosalind in As You Like It can tease and confuse Orlando, confident in the knowledge he loves her and that she can reveal herself to him in good time, Viola in Twelfth Night feels trapped in her impersonation as a male and is forced into the almost humiliating position of having to pleading the case of the man she is in love with to another woman (as was also the case for Julia in Two Gentlemen of Verona, although there it wasn't such a big part of the plot).

In As You Like It and the Merchant, the entire burden of the comedy is born by Rosalind and Portia. Rosalind and Portia have to be funny, because otherwise the plays fail as comedies. But Viola is primarily not a comic character, and she's not central to the play to the extent that Rosalind and Portia are to theirs. In Twelfth Night, it's the situation that's funny, not the female lead.

Rosalind and Portia are completely comfortable in their impersonations --- they glory in them, in fact. Their masquerades are comic because they get such a kick out of taking on a male role.

On the other hand, in Viola's case, the comedy comes from her awkwardness in trying to fill a role she doesn't know how to play. Although there are times, especially in the beginning, when she seems very boyish (or at least the text supports an actress who is capable of playing her that way), she finds trying to be a male completely bewildering. (Just as, in fact, many adolescent males do.) She's a young woman (maybe seventeen years old, and, incidentally, of comparatively high status, as the beginning of the play shows) still in the process of figuring out how all the male-female stuff works, and now she suddenly finds herself playing on the opposite team, the object of man-to-man talks about women from Orsino. At times, Viola appears as very much the young man, and a few minutes later she's very much the confused young woman, in love with a man who's trying to help teach her how to grow up as a male. Obviously the actress playing her has lots of choices, but for me, this flickering back-and-forth shift from male to female is the most charming thing about her.

She is in a strange country with no protector, and has been told that the Lady of the land, Olivia, is in seclusion. She applies, disguised as a male, Cesario, to be the servant of Duke Orsino. And within a few days, she has happen to her what so often happens to me when I offer to help someone out: she is asked to do a task that she has no idea how to carry out. Namely she is asked to deliver a love message (oral, not a letter) to this lady, Olivia, who is adamantly refusing to see anyone.

But Olivia does allow Viola to see her, apparently on the grounds that Viola has been described as a young man. Younger men are apparently more interesting to her than older nobility such as Orsino.

Viola is now completely awkward, in a funny way. This is one of the moments in the play where I see her as very boyish.

Cesario (Viola). Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty ---

Cesario (Viola).  Excuse me, tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her. I would be loath to cast away my speech, for besides the fact that it is excellently well written, I've gone to a lot of trouble to memorize it. Good beauties, let me sustain no scorn. I have very sensitive feelings.

Olivia. Whence came you, sir?

Cesario. I can say little more except for the speech I learned, and that answer's not part of it. Good gentle one, give me modest assurance if you be the lady of the house, that I may proceed with my speech.

Olivia. Are you an actor?

Cesario. No, my profound heart. And yet (I swear by the very fangs of malice) I am not the person that I play. Are you the lady of the house?

Olivia. If I do not usurp myself, I am.

Cesario. Most certain, if you are she, then you do usurp yourself: for what is yours to bestow is not yours to reserve. But this is all beside the point. I will continue my speech in your praise and then get to the heart of my message.

Olivia. Oh, skip the praise and get to the important part.

Cesario. Alas, I went to a lot of trouble to learn it, and 'tis very poetical.

Shakespeare is just riffing at this point. Just inventing banter, which was clearly one of the kinds of writing that came most easily to him.

But in the process, he is inventing the personality for Cesaro (Viola). He is discovering who Cesaro is by listening to the words that come out of his (her) mouth. (I've read critics who are skeptical of this sort of statement. But writers will know what I'm talking about.)

And one can certainly see how Olivia would be charmed by this awkward and rather feminine-looking boy. Certainly the audience is charmed by him/her.

Olivia falls in love with Viola, or rather with her male persona Cesario. Viola seems to be wondering, "What is this whole love business about really, if Olivia can be in love with me when my masculinity is only a disguise?" And yet she's not quite willing to take the next step and wonder whether her own love for Orsino is any deeper than this.

It seems to me that Viola is one of Shakespeare's most poignant heroines. Desdemona and Juliet and Ophelia are tragically poignant, because of the way they are rejected by the men they love. (Assuming that Ophelia is in fact in love with Hamlet, which is something Shakespeare seems to change his mind about a little more than half way through the play.) Viola on the other hand is only comically poignant, but I think we feel for her more deeply than for either Desdemona or Juliet or Ophelia, because we know her better and because in a way, although her situation is less serious, her emotions seem more touching. Or at least, that's my response.

Anyone who's ever been in love and found themselves unable to tell the other person about it will respond to the interchange between Orsino and Viola in Act 2 Scene 4. Viola, trapped in her role as a boy, tells him about her love for him, but in a way that he won't be able to understand, starting with a play upon the word "favor," which Orsino uses as a synonym for face.

Duke. My life upon it, young though thou art, thine eye
Hath strayed upon some favor that it loves.
Hath it not, boy?

Cesaro (Viola). A little, by your favor.

Duke. What sort of woman is it?

Viola. Of your complexion.

Duke. She is not worth thee, then. What years, i' faith.

Viola. About your years, my lord.

Duke. Too old, by heaven. Let still a woman take
An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
So sways the level in her husband's heart.
Our fancies [i.e. men's] are more giddy and infirm,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,
Than women's are.

Viola. I think as much, my lord.

Duke. Then let thy love be younger than thyself.
Or thy affection cannot hold the bent;
For women are as roses, whose fair flower
Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.

Viola. And so they are; alas, that they are so!
To die, even when they to perfection grow!

After a short break for Feste to sing a song, Orsino, assuming that he is talking to an young man, tells Viola that women's love is not as deep as men's (contradicting, by the way, what he had said only lines previously):

Duke. There is no woman's sides
Can hide the beating of so strong a passion
As love doth give my heart; no woman's heart
So big, to hold so much. Women lack retention.
Alas, their love may be called appetite.
Not motion of the liver, but of the palate,
That suffers surfeit, cloyment, and revolt;
But mine is all as hungry as the sea
And can digest as much. Make no compare
Between the love a woman can bear me
And that I love Olivia.

Viola replies, in one of her most famous passages (Act 2, Scene 4):

Viola. My father had a daughter loved a man;
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should love your lordship.

Duke. And what's her history?

Viola. A blank, my lord: she never told her love,
But let concealment like a worm i' the bud
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was this not love indeed?

"My life is hopeless," Viola is saying. " The rest of my life will be a blank."

At this moment, as I see it, Viola is her most completely feminine. She is speaking from her heart, and in doing so she will not be able to maintain her Cesario persona. All Orsino has to do, it seems, is look at her to realize that she's a woman and is in love with him. But of course he doesn't. An essential part of the comedy of all chick flicks, in fact (or chick plays), is that when it comes to women, men are really dumb and can't see what's before their eyes. It's funny because it's what the audience wants to believe.

And yet, at the same time, there can be another overtone here. Orsino believes that this is an adolescent boy, Cesario, speaking to him. And in Shakespeare's own theatre it would in fact have been a boy playing the part. Now when Cesario (i.e. Viola) says to him that she has loved a man "a little of your complexion and about your years," and then a little later says,

My father had a daughter loved a man;
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should love your lordship,

it might occur to Orsino, if he is perceptive enough, that this boy Cesario is actually telling him in a masked way that he has a crush on him. Since Orsino is, at the very least, very fond of Cesario, he would undoubtedly smile at this, although without commenting.

Does Orsino in fact draw this conclusion? Well, since he exists only in our imaginations, and since the text certainly doesn't say so, this is a question that can be answered only by ourselves, or by the actor playing Orsino. The point is though that at least some members of the audience would pick up this overtone.

Irony is among Shakespeare's most frequent tools. In the example of Marc Antony's funeral speech in Julius Caesar, where Antony keeps repeating "And Brutus is an honorable man," the true meaning behind the overt meaning is immediately obvious to the audience, and the use of irony gets the point across even more effectively.

But true dramatic irony, which is much prettier than this, as in the case of Viola's lines quoted above, is when the audience understands the hidden meaning but the character in the play does not. And Viola's lines are an example of the very prettiest use of dramatic irony, when the hidden meaning is something that requires a little thought for us to decipher, and when there may in fact be more than one hidden meaning.

In the Merchant of Venice, it is difficult to love Portia because she is so completely invulnerable, so completely in control. (And consequently I believe that it is important that the actress play Portia in a way that gives her a little vulnerability.) Even though logically her situation is more precarious than either Rosalind or Viola because she has more at risk if discovered, there's never much doubt but that she'll be able to make things come out completely as she wants them to.

Rosalind has her moments of vulnerability, but only moments. And we can see that Rosalind's situation is competely a matter of choice. She can extricate herself at any moment simply by revealing her true identity.

Viola, on the other hand, is all vulnerability. She can't simply say to Orsino, "Excuse me, our lordship, but I have to tell you something really important. I'm really not a boy, I'm a girl."   Because...

Because? Why can't Viola simply reveal that she is a woman? Well, in the first place, Shakespeare never gives us a chance to consider this possibility. And secondly, the play would collapse if she were to do so. But, beyond this, she is much more at risk than Rosalind. Orsino's whole affection towards her is predicated on the incorrect belief that she's male, and she can't really know for sure how that would change if he knew the truth. And if Orsino's attitude toward her would change, then until Sebastian arrives Viola would be an woman alone with no male protector. I don't think that an Elizabethan audience would have much trouble understanding her need for disguise.

I think that in Twelfth Night, even more than in As You Like It or Much Ado About Nothing or any of the other comedies, Shakespeare treats the whole idea of love as a joke. Olivia was in love with Cesario, who was really Viola. Well, at the end Sabastian shows up, and he looks exactly like Cesario, so he's a perfectly adequate replacement. (Despite the fact that Olivia's attraction to Cesario, i.e. Viola, was in large part based on a vulnerability in Cesario that Sebastian does not seem to have. On the other hand, Sebastian is a more suitable match for Olivia than Cesario, even though he's not as cute.) And Orsino was in love with Olivia, but his real affection (as opposed to infatuation) was for his young male servant Cesario. But it turns out that Cesario is really a woman, Viola. Okay, fine, forget Olivia, and now Orsino will be in love with Viola.

Okay, so it's all farce, and quite charming. The big joke is that the absurdity of the whole thing. But jokes like this are only really funny if they're saying something to us, something we don't quite want to take seriously. We don't really want to believe that love is only skin deep, an absurdity.

Or do we?

What is it that makes people like these comedies so much?

I think that maybe in order for a romantic comedy to work, the author has to be in love with his leading female character. Shakespeare was clearly in love with Rosalind. Lucky for him, the audience also loves her, otherwise we would notice how indulgent he is toward her.

As to Portia, it's not so clear. Shakespeare certainly didn't seem to about her enough to give her any good lines, except for the Mercy Speech. Of course there are lots of ways of playing her, but she doesn't seem to be a very soft character. As mentioned, there's not much vulnerability in her, there's something about her that's rather hard and glossy. Her role in the play is mostly functional. She serves her purpose and defeats Shylock and we admire her (well, some of do, at least), but I don't think we love her.

But with respect to Viola. One can see that Shakespeare had an affection for Viola, a compassion. But it's a different sort of feeling.

Do we fall in love with the woman who is outrageous and sexy, like Rosalind? Or do we fall in love with the one who is fragile and awkward and vulnerable, like Viola?

Me, I tend to fall in love with both.