character exploration in twelfth night

When looking at my character i have been researching the attitudes of servants to their superiors on Elizabethan times. I found that they would have been very respectful to their superiors as they wouldn't have a lot of money and to lose their job over a snide comment or sly look would be the worst thing in the world. I do think that servants would let their hair down when not working or with other secants as they were normal human beings like anyone else who would have a laugh and joke around with their work friends. I have been told repeatedly that i need to lighten up in this scene and i have been working on my character to accommodate this. Originally i had a very swatty and nerdy character to fit in the school theme but i found that this makes my character sound harsh and serious which i don't want at all. I have tried lots of different types of characters like the school head girl type character which is less stern and more of a kiss ass character than anything. This did make an improvement and mad the character a lot more playful and chummy with the other character Feste, but the in the next rehearsal i tried another character which was a mixture of the two and was told that i had become more angry and stern again so i have decided to go back to the head girl type character who can have a laugh. i went through the script and highlighted all of Feste's jokes as this was a barrier at first to making my character lighter as i didn't pick up on the banter between the two characters so i didn't react in the correct way throughout the piece. I am working on making my character lighter in this through a more open and happy physicality and working on laughing in the correct moments during the performance. I use the set and the cloth in this extract to create more interesting pictures in the scene I use the red cloth as a noose during the line "but, you shall be hanged for being so long absent" and I release it on the line "turned away" this gives me more to do and makes the scene less static as we are making use of the set and props throughout.