A play based on Shakespeare's character from Twelfth Night

Cesario at the National Theatrehttp://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/cesario?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=PopUp_Cesario_130812&sSourceCode=6366An interesting production at the National Theatre 22-25 August

Malvolio’s Audition

Malvolio’s Audition

MALVOLIO

M, O, A, I; this simulation is not as the former: and yet, to crush this a little, it would bow to me, for every one of these letters are in my name.

Soft! here follows prose.

Reads

'If this fall into thy hand, revolve.

In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.

Cast thy humble slough and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants; she thus advises thee that sighs for thee.

Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever cross-gartered: I say, remember.

Go to, thou art made, if thou desirest to be so; if not, let me see thee a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to touch Fortune's fingers.

Farewell. She that would alter services with thee,

THE FORTUNATE-UNHAPPY.'

Daylight and champaign discovers not more: this is open.

I will be proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-devise the very man.

I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade me; for every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me.

She did commend my yellow stockings of late, she did praise my leg being cross-gartered; and in this she manifests herself to my love, and with a kind of injunction drives me to these habits of her liking.

I thank my stars I am happy. I will be strange, stout, in yellow stockings, and cross-gartered, even with the swiftness of putting on. Jove and my stars be praised! Here is yet a postscript.

Reads

'Thou canst not choose but know who I am.

If thou entertainest my love, let it appear in thy smiling; thy smiles become thee well; therefore in my presence still smile, dear my sweet, I prithee.'

Jove, I thank thee: I will smile; I will do everything that thou wilt have me.

Orsino’s Scene with Valentine & Curio

Orsino’s Scene with Valentine & Curio

DUKE 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 odour! 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.

CURIO

Will you go hunt, my lord?

DUKE ORSINO

What, Curio?

CURIO

The hart.

DUKE ORSINO

Why, so I do, the noblest that I have:

O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,

Methought she purged the air of pestilence!

That instant was I turn'd into a hart;

And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,

E'er since pursue me.

Enter VALENTINE

How now! what news from her?

VALENTINE

So please my lord, I might not be admitted;

But from her handmaid do return this answer:

The element itself, till seven years' heat,

Shall not behold her face at ample view;

But, like a cloistress, she will veiled walk

And water once a day her chamber round

With eye-offending brine: all this to season

A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh

And lasting in her sad remembrance.

DUKE ORSINO

O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame

To pay this debt of love but to a brother,

Away before me to sweet beds of flowers:

Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers.

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Audition for Sebastian

Audition for Sebastian

ANTONIO

Will you stay no longer? nor will you not that I go with you?

SEBASTIAN

By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me: the malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone: it were a bad recompense for your love, to lay any of them on you.

ANTONIO

Let me yet know of you whither you are bound.

SEBASTIAN

No, sooth, sir: But I perceive in you so excellent a touch of modesty, that you will not extort from me what I am willing to keep in.

You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian, Sebastian of Messaline, whom I know you have heard of.

He left behind him myself and a sister, both born in an hour: if the heavens had been pleased, would we had so ended!

But you, sir, altered that; for some hour before you took me from the breach of the sea was my sister drowned.

ANTONIO

Alas the day!

SEBASTIAN

A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful: she bore a mind that envy could not but call fair; but she is drowned already, sir, with salt water, though I seem to drown her remembrance again with more.

ANTONIO

Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment.

SEBASTIAN

O good Antonio, forgive me your trouble.

ANTONIO

If you will not murder me for my love, let me be

your servant.

SEBASTIAN

If you will not undo what you have done, that is, kill him whom you have recovered, desire it not.

Fare ye well at once: my bosom is full of kindness, and I am yet so near the manners of my mother, that upon the least occasion more mine eyes will tell tales of me.

I am bound to the Count Orsino's court: farewell.

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Audition for Olivia and Viola

Audition for Olivia and Viola

VIOLA (as Cesario)

Good madam, let me see your face.

OLIVIA

Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my face? You are now out of your text: but we will draw the curtain and show you the picture. Look you, sir, is't not well done?

Unveiling

VIOLA

Excellently done, if God did all.

OLIVIA

'Tis in grain, sir; 'twill endure wind and weather.

VIOLA

'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on: Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive, if you will lead these graces to the grave and leave the world no copy.

OLIVIA

O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted; I will give out divers schedules of my beauty: it shall be inventoried, and every particle and utensil labelled to my will: as, item, two lips, indifferent red; item, two grey eyes, with lids to them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth.

Were you sent hither to praise me?

VIOLA

I see you what you are, you are too proud;

My lord and master loves you!

OLIVIA

How does he love me?

VIOLA

With adorations, fertile tears, with groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.

OLIVIA

Your lord does know my mind; I cannot love him:

Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,

Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth;

A gracious person: but yet I cannot love him;

He might have took his answer long ago.

VIOLA

If I did love you in my master's flame,

In your denial I would find no sense;

I would not understand it.

OLIVIA

Why, what would you?

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;

Halloo your name to the reverberate hills

And make the babbling gossip of the air

Cry out 'Olivia!'

OLIVIA

You might do much. What is your parentage?

VIOLA

Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:

I am a gentleman.

OLIVIA

Get you to your lord;

I cannot love him: let him send no more;

Unless, perchance, you come to me again,

To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well:

I thank you for your pains: spend this for me.

VIOLA

I am no fee'd post, lady; keep your purse:

My master, not myself, lacks recompense.

Farewell, fair cruelty.

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Audition for Sir Toby & Sir Andrew

Audition for Sir Toby & Sir Andrew

SIR TOBY BELCH

O knight thou lackest a cup of canary: when did I see thee so put down?

SIR ANDREW

Never in your life, I think. Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has: but I am a great eater of beef and I believe that does harm to my wit.

SIR TOBY BELCH

No question.

SIR ANDREW

An I thought that, I’d forswear it. I’ll ride home tomorrow, Sir Toby.

SIR TOBY BELCH

Pourquoi, my dear knight?

SIR ANDREW

What is ‘Pourquoi’? do or not do? I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing and bear-baiting:

O, had I but followed the arts!

SIR TOBY BELCH

Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair.

SIR ANDREW

Why, would that have mended my hair?

SIR TOBY BELCH

Past question; for thou seest it will not curl by nature.

SIR ANDREW

But it becomes me well enough, does’t not?

SIR TOBY BELCH

Excellent; it hangs like flax on a distaff.

SIR ANDREW

Faith, I’ll home to-morrow, Sir Toby: your niece will not be seen; or if she be, it’s four to one she’ll none of me: the count himself here hard by woos her.

SIR TOBY BELCH

She’ll none o’ the count: she’ll not match above her degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit; I have heard her swear’t.

Tut, there’s life in’t, man.

SIR ANDREW

I’ll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o’ the strangest mind I’ the world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether.

SIR TOBY BELCH

Art thou good at these kickshawses, knight?

SIR ANDREW

As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be.

SIR TOBY BELCH

What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?

SIR ANDREW

Faith, I can cut a caper.

SIR TOBY BELCH

And I can cut the mutton to’t.

SIR ANDREW

And I think I have the back-trick simply as strong as any man in Illyria.

SIR TOBY BELCH

Wherefore are these things hid? Wherefore have these gifts a curtain before ‘em? My very walk should be a jig; I did think, by the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was formed under the star of a galliard.

SIR ANDREW

Ay, ‘tis strong. Shall we set about some revels?

SIR TOBY BELCH

What shall we do else? Let me see the caper;

Ha! Higher: Ha, ha! Excellent!

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Audition for Sir Toby & Maria

Audition for Sir Toby & Maria

SIR TOBY BELCH

What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure care's an enemy to life.

MARIA

By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o' nights: your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.

You must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.

SIR TOBY BELCH

Confine! I'll confine myself no finer than I am: these clothes are good enough to drink in; and so be these boots too.

MARIA

That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard my lady talk of it yesterday; and of a foolish knight that you brought in one night here to be her wooer.

SIR TOBY BELCH

Who, Sir Andrew Aguecheek?

MARIA

Ay, he.

SIR TOBY BELCH

He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria.

MARIA

What's that to the purpose?

SIR TOBY BELCH

Why, he has three thousand ducats a year.

MARIA

Ay, but he's a very fool and a prodigal.

SIR TOBY BELCH

Fie, that you'll say so! He plays o' the viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature.

MARIA

He hath indeed: for besides that he's a fool, he's a great quarreller:

'Tis thought among the prudent he would quickly have the gift of a grave.

SIR TOBY BELCH

By this hand, they are scoundrels and subtractors that say so of him. Who are they?

MARIA

They that add, moreover, he's drunk nightly in your company.

SIR TOBY BELCH

With drinking healths to my niece: I'll drink to her as long as there is a passage in my throat and drink in Illyria.

What, wench! For here comes Sir Andrew Agueface.