With cross-dressing, gender fluidity, and homoerotic love, “Twelfth Night” is often understood to be one of Shakespeare’s queerest works.
A whirlwind comedy of mistaken identity and love triangles, the tale follows twins Viola and Sebastian, separated by a shipwreck. To survive, Viola disguises herself as a man, “Cesario,” and enters employment to the romantic Duke Orsino. Orsino is in love with the Countess Olivia, but she is mourning her dead brother and refuses to see him. Orsino sends Cesario to woo Olivia for him, but Olivia falls in love with Cesario instead – while Cesario falls for Orsino.
In her directorial debut, Cait Cortelyou is queering the play even further with more explicit LGBTQ+ themes and historic trans representation in her free production with Contemporary Classics Theatre, which closes this weekend at Autrey Mill.
In one of the first times in history, a trans actor, Elliott Posadni, will be playing the role of Viola/Cesario, with Cortelyou doing some light rewrites to also make the character understood to be trans. Before Viola disguises herself as Cesario, she’s mourning her brother and alone in the world. Throughout the play, Viola transforms, their male identity allowing them to come into their own.
“They’re put together [as Cesario],” Cortelyou, who is the new artistic director of Contemporary Classics Theatre, told Georgia Voice. “They’re capable of making pleasantries. They’re getting their footing, and as the play progresses, they just seem to be coming into their own and getting more confident. Cesario is actually a good, safe place for them. It feels more authentic, it feels better.”
In the original play, despite these huge changes in her personality through Cesario, Viola reverts backs to her old self after being revealed as a woman and “loses all agency,” Cortelyou said.
“As soon as she’s like, ‘Yes, I’m actually a woman,’ she doesn’t have another line for the rest of the play,” she said. “She doesn’t actually verbally consent to marrying Orsino, doesn’t say anything. It’s weird, so I just changed it a little bit. Now when Orsino says, ‘Shall I see thee in thy maiden weeds?’ they just shake their head no, because this is the person that Orsino fell in love with. They fell in love with Cesario, they didn’t fall in love with Viola.”
With this and other slight changes to the character and story, Cortelyou hopes to harness the transformative power of theater to give people, especially the LGTBQ+ community, hope.
“One of the most powerful things we can do something is to just be ourselves, unabashedly and authentically… I think it’s sort of refreshing and cathartic and beautiful to see happily ever after for a trans character,” she said. “It’s not fraught, it’s not sad, it’s just this beautiful moment of joy. Their brother is actually alive and the person they love loves them back. Everything’s fine and great and beautiful. I want us to have hope, that’s what keeps us going.”
Contemporary Classics Theatre aims to make great theater accessible to different community. “Twelfth Night” has traveled around Metro Atlanta over the last few weekends, bringing free and publicly accessible theater to The Forum in Peachtree Corners and Town Center on Mian in Suwanee before this weekend’s shows in John’s Creek.
“Twelfth Night” will complete its three-weekend run on May 10 at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. and May 11 at 2 p.m. at Autrey Mill, 9770 Autrey Mill Rd. For more information, visit onthestage.tickets/contemporary-classics-theatre/individual-tickets.
