When Talena Laine first learned she would be part of Bainbridge Performing Arts' production of Twelfth Night, her reaction was immediate and joyful. She was over the moon, she says, because Viola is one of the great Shakespeare roles for women, a character who gets to do everything, to be funny, romantic, heartbroken, clever, messy, and incredibly human. What excited her even more was the chance to move beyond the traditional interpretation of a girl disguising herself as a boy and simply getting the man. From the very beginning, this production, a collaboration between Bainbridge Performing Arts and Bloedel Reserve, was interested in framing the story through a queer lens, and over time in the rehearsal room that became an exploration of what becoming Cesario might actually awaken in Viola, rather than treating the disguise as something she simply sheds at the end. There was also the very special bonus of playing opposite her real life husband, Reed, as Orsino, a magical opportunity, as she describes it, to fall in love with her own husband again and again each night.
Talena believes the story remains deeply relevant to women today because of the tension between how Viola understands herself, how other people perceive her, and who she discovers she can be when she is given permission to step outside the identity she has always inhabited. She points out that women in particular understand the constant experience of being told what femininity is supposed to look like and what kinds of lives or relationships constitute a happy ending, and she is proud that this production blows all of that up. As she has grown in her career, Talena has become much less interested in being the right kind of actress and much more interested in being the most truthful version of herself as an artist, letting go of the expectations placed on women in the industry about how they should look, what roles they should play, and how agreeable, confident, or vulnerable they are supposed to be.
Talena notes that gender and identity in Twelfth Night are already much less stable than people sometimes pretend, since Viola becomes Cesario, Olivia falls passionately in love with Cesario, and Orsino develops an intimacy with Cesario before knowing Viola's true identity. The play is already full of desire that refuses to conform, and the production is not imposing ambiguity onto Shakespeare so much as allowing itself to follow it all the way through. She connects this to the way most people learn very early how to code switch between different versions of themselves, and how women in particular feel the pressure to make themselves more palatable, less loud, less ambitious, less emotional, more attractive, more agreeable. What is fascinating about Viola, she says, is that becoming someone else does not ultimately erase her, it reveals her.
Talena believes Twelfth Night is deeply suspicious of the phrase supposed to. Viola's feelings for Orsino are not made less real because she discovers an attraction to Olivia, and her connection with Olivia does not invalidate what she feels for Orsino. Director Elizabeth Allum was much more interested in allowing those truths to coexist than forcing Viola to choose the one relationship that makes the ending easiest to categorize, which is why the ending does not culminate in the traditional rush of marriages. Viola ends the play between Orsino and Olivia, with intentional ambiguity about what happens next. Maybe she dates both of them, maybe she has not figured it out yet, and that is the point. She does not need to walk offstage having solved herself.
For young girls who dream of acting but fear they are not talented enough, confident enough, or don't look like the women they see on stage and screen, Talena offers this wisdom: acting is not about becoming the woman you think people want to watch, it is about allowing your own curiosity, empathy, and fearlessness to shine through. Technique can be learned and refined, confidence is a mind game that comes and goes, but nobody else can bring exactly what you bring into a room. Above all, she hopes people leave Bloedel Reserve feeling a little more permission to be complicated. The production does not end by putting everyone back into the correct relationship and assuring the audience that order has been restored, it ends with possibility. Viola has survived grief, fallen in love twice, been desired as someone she did not know she could be, discovered new dimensions of herself, and found the brother she thought she had lost, and she still does not have everything figured out. She is messy and she makes mistakes with consequences she has to face, and she is not a perfect heroine by any stretch, which is refreshing to embody and, Talena hopes, refreshing for people to see.
