Answer:
Main Character:
Viola
A young woman of aristocratic birth, and the play’s protagonist. Washed up on the shore of Illyria when her ship is wrecked in a storm, Viola decides to make her own way in the world. She disguises herself as a young man, calling herself "Cesario," and becomes a page to Duke Orsino. She ends up falling in love with Orsino—even as Olivia, the woman Orsino is courting, falls in love with Cesario. Thus, Viola finds that her clever disguise has entrapped her: she cannot tell Orsino that she loves him, and she cannot tell Olivia why she, as Cesario, cannot love her. Her poignant plight is the central conflict in the play.
Opinion:
You get a sense of the playfulness of Wils Wilson’s trippy take on Shakespeare’s romcom when she introduces the twins. Viola is tall with an afro and an English accent. Sebastian is short, pale and Scottish. This is a comedy that depends on the interchangeability of lookalike siblings, washed up and separated on the shores of Illyria, so it’s doubly funny when they look totally different. They’re twins because they say so. Get over it. Nor does the make-believe end there. In a cast with a 50/50 gender split, sister and brother alike are played by women. Jade Ogugua’s Viola, big-hearted and earnest, goes into the world disguised as a man. Joanne Thomson’s Sebastian, principled and steely, is also a man, but not in disguise. While Shakespeare played with the slipperiness of appearances, Wilson has fun with the fluidity of identity. It keeps us on our toes. We have to remember, for example, that when Viola is in the company of Colette Dalal Tchantcho’s formidable and flamboyant Orsino, both are playing male, but as far as the story is concerned, only one is pretending. On top of this, there’s an actual gender swap as Sir Toby Belch becomes Lady Tobi, played by Dawn Sievewright with a bumptious physical extravagance, who nonetheless has a liking for men’s suits and a greater liking for Joanna Holden’s mischievous Maria.
