Enough of Excess: Portrayals of Twelfth Night’s Maria

Abstract

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night deals with the tangled and confused love relations of its characters, mainly Viola, Orsino, Olivia, and Sebastian. However, a third love match also occurs, one between Olivia’s kinsman, Sir Toby Belch, and her gentlewoman, Maria. Within the text, Maria’s role centers on this relationship with Sir Toby, as well as her role in the plot against Malvolio. The final mention of her in the text unites these two aspects of her character: “Maria writ / The letter, at Sir Toby’s great importance, / In recompense whereof he hath married her.”¹ Her success as a trickster leads to her marriage with Sir Toby. Yet, in recent adaptations of Twelfth Night, directors have chosen to emphasize one of these aspects of her character over the other, casting her in either a distinctly feminine or distinctly masculine role.