Twelfth Night Viola The Language of Love

“Twelfth Night, Viola, & The Language of Love” By Alycia Smith-Howard

Orsino If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again, it had a dying fall; O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odor. Enough, no more, “Tis not so sweet now as it was before. O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou, That notwithstanding thy capacity Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there, Of what validity and pitch soe’er, But falls into abatement and low price Even in a minute. So full of shapes is fancy That it alone is high fantastical. (I. i. 1 -15)

Contrasting text in Orsino’s speech “If music be the food of love, play on, ” (1) _ “Enough, no more, /Tis not so sweet now as it was before. ” (78)

Chronology 1600 -01 1601 -02 1604 1605 -06 Hamlet The Merry Wives of Windsor *Twelfth Night, or What You Will* Troilus and Cressida Othello Measure for Measure All’s Well that Ends Well Timon of Athens King Lear

VIOLA Make me a willow cabin at your gate, And call upon my soul within the house; Write loyal cantons of contemned 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 elements of air and earth But you should pity me! (I. v. 267 -276) VIOLA My father had a daughter loved a man; 
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, 
I should love your lordship. … 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? We men may say more, swear more: but indeed Our shows are more than will; for still we prove Much in our vows, but little in our love. … I am all the daughters of my father’s house, And all the brothers too: and yet I know not. (II. iv. 106 -121)

Peggy Ashcrosft as Viola Old Vic, 1950, dir. Hugh Hunt

Viola (Jane Lapotaire) and Orsino (John Price) (dir. Peter Gill, 1974)

1974

Vivien Leigh as Viola, Keith Mitchell as Orsino; dir. John Geilgud (RSC, 1955)

Maxine Audley (Olivia) and Vivien Leigh (Viola) (1955)

Orsino (Alan Howard) and Viola (Diana Rigg), 1966 (dir. Clifford Williams)

Cherie Lunghi (Viola) Stephen Rashbrook (Sebastian) in Terry Hands’ “Christmas” Twelfth Night (1974)

Frederick Richard Pickersgill painting of Orsino and Viola, mid 1800 s

Amanda Bynes as Sebastian in She’s the Man

Judi Dench as Viola (RSC 1969/70, dir. John Barton)

1969 Viola (Judi Dench) and Olivia (Lisa Harrow) in John Barton’s “Chekhovian” Twelfth Night, 1969

Chris New (Viola) and Tim Chipping (Sea Captain) (dir. Michael Boyd, 2007)

Foreground: John Lithgow as Malvolio Background: Annabel Leventon (Sir Andrew) and Marjorie Yates (Sir Toby Belch)