Viola...

I just wanted to thank you so much for the rehearsal tonight. I'm so excited! It was such a positive, healthy, fun environment.

Here are a couple thoughts after tonight:

Some interesting definitions of 'will':
-In Elizabethan context: both the assertion of power and sexual desire
- to wish; desire; like
- power of choosing one's own actions
- disposition, whether good or ill, toward another.
- Diligent purposefulness; determination:
- to yearn for; desire:

After tonight's rehearsal, I got to thinking about Viola's stakes and a couple of things have changed for me. Last year in Don's class I did the ring speech and found it truly hard to find the balance between where she is having fun in her disguise and where she is not. Upon thinking more about it, however, I don't think this is a "fun" disguise for her. She does have some fun as Cesario and sees the absurdity of her situation, but the Viola underneath is anything but carefree. She is completely different from the other cross dressing heroines of Shakespeare. Rosalind, for example, enjoys her disguise and uses it to have a good time, whereas Viola has to keep it carefully guarded. She plays Cesario well, but never forgets that that is all she is doing - pretending to be someone she is not. She is stuck.

There are also a couple of pictures. I just liked the design of the first one, and the second is oh so true of the show.