I think Orsino very much thinks of Feste just as a normal jester, someone who entertains and makes a couple of jokes after, which honestly, he does. But Feste also sees through Orsino, and sees how he has feelings towards Cesario(Viola). In 2.4., Feste doens't have so many lines in this scene, but he gets to make a very important point in it; he sees how Orsino's privilege gives him the possibility to pick and choose how he likes, but Feste criticizes this privilege by calling him out on his floozy decision making and changing his mind so quickly. I still feel that I could have been more playful with Greta, but the game we played later on in the class helped a lot with this. I think our target with this scene, is to get to run it off-book, but also to have Jade with us, so we can get the playfulness and the physical connection between Orsino and Viola on point.
So, later in class, rather than continuing with our scenes, we continued to explore our characters with the other people playing the same character. The task was to pick one line that is said by the character and create a gesture or way of saying it that embodies the character. There is three Festes in our play; me, Zac and Helen. I think all of us have quite different Festes in mind, but all have a whimsical nature to him. We decided to play around with the line "No pains, sir, I take pleasure in singing, sir. ". We thought this line was the perfect one to describe Feste, since it tells about his profession, jesting, but also how many different meanings one line might have. In context, Feste has just played a song for Viola and Orsino, who have shared a moment with each other. With this line, Feste is basically refusing to accept money from Orsino, because he has already been paid in knowledge, but also just doing what he loves. I thought that there should probably be some sort of simple and subtle gesture to show the audience, that Feste indeed is teasing with this line, So I thought a small wink would do it, but to connect it with a bow truly shows how playful Feste is. It first shows to be just a bow of respect and thankfulness, but truly it is just part of the joke. Zac also added miming a hat, since in those times it would have been polite to take of your hat when bowing, but this could also show Feste's tricks, by rolling the hat as you put it back on. We had to perform these to everyone in the class and just keep improvising different ways of saying the line, but still remaining the same character. I got a point from Andy, that I was very open in my body language and in character, and I feel this is something I have been trying to work on for a while now. I want Feste to be very much an open person. But this exercise also helped me to discover the playfulness of Feste, since you didn't have time to think your actions but just go with it. I noticed to that I played with the by making it more sarcastic or sincere, pretending to play with my instrument or actually taking the money off of Orsino. I think I should play around like this with the different lines more, to help me with my character.
As a group, our next target should be to really play with these lines and the different ways physicalize them, to create the different relationships between the characters. We can definitely use this game within our group, since it can help explore a meaning we haven't thought of before.
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