Themes "Twelfth Night"

The themes of Twelfth Night are very simple even though they represent confusing situations such as mistaken identity.  The main theme in this play has to be mistaken identity as it is the foundation of the play.  This theme is seen in modern television today and is a widely used subject for modern drama such as “the parent trap” which is also based on twins.  Mistaken identity is a very good subject matter in my opinion as Shakespeare was able to construct a whole play around it whilst keeping an audience entertained for two and a half hours. Mine, Chloe's and Ryan's extract doesn't contain this theme but a good example of this would be Jess's scene where she plays a girl playing a man.

 The theme of disguise flows through this plays not only through the character Viola but also with Feste when he visits Malvolio in prison. Also Malvolio’s tights and garters act as a personality disguise when he is trying to woo Olivia. This leads me back to mistaken identity as this costume is very feminine and highlights how people can be sexually ambiguous. Sexual ambiguity was briefly highlighted in out piece when Ryan puts the cloth over his head like a nun as he talks to Olivia.  Cross dressing goes on a lot in this play and is still a very common thing today as we have drag queens and cross gendered people, this subject is socially accepted now and this is how this play would be modernized as it acts as a musical comedy anyway throwing a drag queen in there would just add to is whilst also modernizing it and it would cater to a modern sense of humor. The cross dressing aspect would have also been a normal thing in Jacobean times as the actors where all male and would have had to cross dress to play women so the people playing Olivia and Maria would also be cross dressed so it would be a very socially excepted thing.  Actors cross dressing is where the idea that male actors are camp Came from and is the past the actors may have been sold for sex as they were skilled at emulating the female form, this portrays the similarities and connections with the past views and modern views which stemmed from each other.  Smaller and wider spread themes such as love are represented in this play as in much of Shakespeare’s other plays like “Romeo and Juliet.” Love acts as a motivator for many of the characters in this play such as Duke Orsino who has a passionate love for Olivia, but quickly falls for Viola making me question if there is another connection with homosexual tendencies with this love plot, as he would have had to develop feelings whilst Viola was a male to fall instantly in love with her when she reveals the truth. After erase arch into my character Maria I found that she and Sir Toby form a real relationship at the end of this play and to highlight this When She says "he's a fair young man and well attended" I looked all lovey Dover as a teenager who has a crush would using my body language to show this by swaying and smiling. Homosexual tendencies arise in the plot of Antonio and Sebastian when Antonio helps Sebastian to the island but doesn’t leave him alone claiming to have some sexual chemistry with him. Grief briefly shows in this through the death of Olivia’s family members and the separation of the twins, the theme of grief is shown in our piece as Olivia makes reference to her brothers death and how sad she is, this is mocked by Feste as he teases Olivia saying her brother won't go to heaven. Love, Grief and greed are all themes in this play which will never become old as they are used in nearly every piece of drama known to man in even the most mundane shows such as children’s shows and light television.  These themes don’t need modernizing as they will always be modern forming the foundation of any story or character.