However, after a few of our rehearsals, Yunusa was giving me lessons of how men walk and talk. We'd spend approximately 20-30 minutes most days thinking of different ways for me to act this character.
The first difficulty we tackled was the way I would talk when I'm talking about "the Count". I thought it would be a good idea if Cesario broke the masculinity for a second or two when she is talking to Valentine as she says "I thank you, here comes the Count", I thought that would be a good touch to the scene because it's showing that Cesario cares for the Count, and that she swoons everytime she initially sees him. It worked really well in our scene because it gave Valentine something to react too and get suspicious about. The count obviously doesn't here her say this, because his next line is "who saw Cesario, huh?".
At the end of the scene after Orsino has asked me to go and announce his love for Olivia, I go off to stage right and say to the audience "yet a bareful strife. Who'er I woo, myself I would be his wife."
When I say this I'm just viola, not Cesario and in this line, I can really show how hurt I am and show how much I love him, it shows I love him so much I'd do anything for him to be happy, despite how much it hurts and upsets me.
The next difficulty we tackled was how I was going to walk and stand as a woman being a man. It turned out it wasn't too hard when I got into it, because Yunusa gave me the idea of mimicking the way he walks and stands, so the scene could be slightly comical for the audience to watch.
So, I was analysed how Yunusa walk and turned the way he walked into my character's walk, with a little bit of femininity in it, and everytime Orsino would put his hands on my shoulder I would really react to it by moving backwards slightly and looking out to the audience with a embarrassed, yet excited look on my face.
I felt that by doing all of these things it really helped me unravle my characters characteristics and sweetness.
However, in the middle section of my scene, when Orsino is telling me to "unravel a passion of my love" I am trying to convince him that Olivia will not "admit me", so I believe in this part of the scene I'm being a bit sassy and rebellious towards Orsino, attempting to convince him that it'll never work and it's pointless in me trying to get Olivia to fall in love with him. But in the end I give up because I just want Orsino to be happy with me and want him to be happily in love no matter what.
In my second scene I played Sebastian, I had so much difficulty being Sebastian because I had to portray a man, who is crazy in love-(or lust?) with Olivia and I see my sister who I thought had died and I see my best friend who is under arrest. So I found it so hard to show all of the different emotions he would have been feeling at that very moment in time.
