Olivia

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In the Globe Theatre Company's production of Twelfth Night, Olivia was played by Mark Rylance.

About Mark Rylance

Mark trained at RADA under Hugh Cruttwell and at The Chrysalis Theatre School, Balham, with Barbara Bridgmont. He is the Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe and Phoebus’ Cart Theatre Company. He is also an Associate Artist of the RSC and a friend of the Francis Bacon Research Trust. The Citizen's Theatre (Glasgow) gave him his first job in 1980 and since then he has worked with the RSC, Royal National Theatre, Royal Opera House, Scottish Ballet, Shared Experience, Bush Theatre, Tricycle Theatre and London Theatre of the Imagination. Mark has also worked with Contact Theatre, Oxford Playhouse, Project Theatre (Dublin), Mermaid Theatre, Royal Court, American Repertory Theatre (Boston), Theatre for a New Audience (New York), Pittsburgh Playhouse and Thelma Holt, after whose production of Much Ado About Nothing he received the Olivier Award for Best Actor. In the Globe's Prologue Season in 1996 he played Proteus in The Two Gentlemen of Verona in London and New York. In 1997 Mark directed Triumphs and Mirths for Her Majesty the Queen and played Henry V in the Globe's Opening Season. In 1998 he played Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice and Hippolito in Thomas Dekker's The Honest Whore. The 400th Anniversary 1999 Season saw Mark as Master of Play for Julius Caesar as well as playing Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra. For the 2000 season he played the titular role in Hamlet and appeared in The Antipodes, and in 2001 he played Posthumous/Cloten in Cymbeline. Television: The Grass Arena, Loves Lies Bleeding, In Lambeth and Loving. Film: Prospero's Books by Peter Greenaway, The Institute Benjamenta by Brothers Quay, Angels and Insects, Hearts of Fire and Intimacy.
Click on the numbered links to follow Mark's journey as he creates and plays the character of Olivia in the Globe Theatre.

Mark Rylance - Character Notes 1

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.
I first played Olivia when we took this production of Twelfth Night to Middle Temple Hall earlier this year, but the character is very different now to how I played her then. At the moment, I am playing her as a much more melancholy character. The last time I played a woman on this stage was in 1999, when I played Cleopatra. Cleopatra is a very wild character, she's coquettish and difficult. Olivia is much more refined, but after her father's death, she is very sad and could almost be in hiding, both from herself and from other people. Characters have to fight (in a way) to gain access to her; Cesario has to confront first Toby Belch and Aguecheek, then Malvolio before he meets the countess.

One of the things I explored with the Middle Temple Hall company, and which I’m still exploring with the new company, was Olivia's relationship with Malvolio. I am more and more aware that Malvolio is a very observant character; he's watching Olivia the whole time. They spend a great deal of time together, but I don’t think Olivia's aware that he fancies her. When family members die, there is a lot of work to be done; settling accounts and so on. I think that Olivia's father was a little bit on the wilder side, like Toby Belch, and probably didn’t leave his affairs in order. All the problems that her father would have dealt with, as head of the household, now come to Olivia. Malvolio could have done a lot of that work for her, but because he loves her, and wants to be near her, he uses it as an excuse to have regular meetings with her. He is the assistant who has fallen in love with his boss. Still, Malvolio is very important to Olivia, though not in the way he would wish. In act iii scene 4, when Olivia exits, she states that she "would not have him miscarry for the half of [her] dowry." This is because Malvolio knows everything about how the household is run – to lose him would be a catastrophe.

What I’m especially struck with, this time around, is Shakespeare's use of separate realities in Twelfth Night. For example, in iii.4, Olivia is desperately waiting for her potential lover (Cesario) to return, wondering how to welcome him and how to act when he arrives. Malvolio is in a completely separate reality, which lets him interpret her confusion and her actions as signs of her love for him. The comedy of the scene comes out of the disparities between these two realities. Situations such as this one are a real challenge for the actor, as you have to develop the differences between the two realities for the audience without undermining the reality your character inhabits.

When taking a production onto the Globe stage, the whole issue of movement and positioning comes into play. You certainly don’t want to stand in one place forever, instead, you want to move around a lot and always position yourself on a diagonal with some of the audience. We’re not actually blocking the production. Sometimes, Tim [Carroll, Master of Play] will ask us to try specific movements and placements, but nothing's ever set in stone. What guides our movements is our character's objective. Tim talks a lot about football, comparing the actors to players. It's a useful comparison, especially on that stage, where one needs to be aware of your "team-mates." Passing a ball is similar to passing the story around the stage; you have to be careful not to crowd around it, and use it to open up the space for the other players. There are so many times in Twelfth Night when the ball is shot out into the audience, then recovered by various characters. Having said all this, the ball/story is not necessarily always with the person who is speaking, which leads to further complications.

When playing the Globe space, you need to ensure that you can be seen and heard by those sitting at the back of the theatre. I am using a slightly stronger, more resonant voice than I used in Middle Temple Hall. This is simply so that it can be heard; sometimes the wind and the rain make it hard for the audience to hear the actors. Although I am playing a woman, I am not altering the tone of my voice. I have been listening to tapes of Dame Judi Dench, who speaks in a fairly low register, and whose voice is not much higher than mine. The pitch of her voice never gets significantly "higher," instead it sometimes gets slightly lighter, more airy at certain moments. This is something I hope to use in performance.

In a similar vein, I have been watching Sian [Williams, Master of Movement] and Tamara [Harvey, Assistant to the Master of Play] to get an idea of how women move. It seems that women's movements are much smaller and daintier than men’s; just a small movement can illustrate a great deal. I believe that stillness is one of the best movements an actor can use on any stage, and you need to carefully consider every movement you make. This is especially true in the Globe space, with the audience watching you from many different angles. Whether a movement "works" on that stage depends on the particular moment in the story. If the story is hanging on the next thing that your character says, to the extent that all the other characters on stage are looking at you, the slightest movement can be very telling. If the focus is not quite so tight, and the audience are not being held in suspense as to what you’re going to do, you have to make your movement a bit more dynamic. I don’t worry about making my movements "bigger" to fit the Globe space; instead, I worry about making unnecessary movements such as shuffling around. Ultimately, I try to be as natural as possible.

Activities

1. Mark mentions the comparisons the company has made between playing the Globe and playing football.

Draw a "formation diagram" for iii.4. Where would you have the characters move to at particular points in the scene?

a) Draw a plan of the Globe stage (remember to include the pillars).

b) Take some coloured pens and assign each character their own colour. Mark your plan with a cross for where each character should move to after their first entrance.

c) Now go through the scene, deciding at which times, and on/after which lines (cue lines), each character should move, and where on the stage they should move to. Mark their second (then third, fourth etc.) destination(s) with another cross (using the same colour for each character) and join each new cross to the preceding one with a straight line. On top of this line, if applicable, write the cue line relating to the movement. You can do this for either a part, or the whole of the scene.

d) Using a new colour, now mark your diagram with small circles where you think the focus of the scene could start, and where it could move to during the scene. In the same way as above, join the first to the second, then the second to the third (etc) circle with straight lines and, if applicable, write down the cue line on which the focus shifts.

e) Now play the scene using your formation diagram. Does your staging work?

f) Finally, play the scene without using your diagram. How does changing a character's movements alter the focus of the scene?

2. What is said about Olivia?

At the beginning of the rehearsal period Mark read through the play and made lists detailing:

  • everything Olivia says about herself
  • everything Olivia says about other characters in the play
  • everything that other characters say about Olivia

Make these three lists for Olivia. What do you find out about the character by doing this?

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