The passage listed below and perform a close reading that demonstrates not only your understanding of the text, but what it reveals to you about how to interpret the exchange on stage.
Take the skills that you have acquired through close reading Wedding Band and apply them to the Shakespearean language. Pay attention to elements of the language: word choice, dynamics (when does the text indicate increase in speed, pauses, etc.), sounds (kinds of consonants and vowels), and whether it is prose or verse – and if verse, what kind (and why does the distinction matter). How does a word, a sound, a phrase propel the action? What do the words reveal? What do they hide?
Make sure to look up words/ phrases/ references to get their full, historical meanings. Do research beyond the given textual notes, if appropriate.
Feel free to look at clips from various productions for performance ideas, but do not copy them directly. As long as you stay true and close to the text, this is an opportunity to display creativity in revealing subtext and possible stagings.
PASSAGE:
VIOLA
I left no ring with her. What means this lady?
Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her!
She made good view of me, indeed so much
That methought her eyes had lost her tongue,
For she did speak in starts distractedly.
She loves me sure! The cunning of her passion
Invites me in this churlish messenger.
None of my lord’s ring? Why, he sent her none!
I am the man. If it be so, as ‘tis,
Poor lady, she were better love a dream.
Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
How easy is it for the proper false
In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms!
Alas, [our] frailty is the cause, not we,
For such as we are made of, such we be.
How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly,
And I, poor monster, fond as much on him,
And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.
What will become of this? As I am man,
My state is desperate for my master’s love.
As I am woman, (now alas the day!),
What thriftless sights shall poor Olivia breathe!
O Time, thou must untangle this, not I.
It is too hard a knot for me t’ untie.
