he video we watched, it would have been wonderful performed on a stage of the early seventeenth century, and regardless of where the play is performed, it's not a challenge to convince oneself that it's all quite believable.The most peculiar part of this play takes place in the closing act, when a plethora of completely bizarre marriages and relationships culminate. In an era where marriages outside of one's social class, particularly in the aristocracy, are extremely rare to nonexistent, they come out of the woodwork at the conclusion of this play. As if that weren't odd enough, all of the marriages have additional extenuating circumstance that would make them seem out of place regardless of the social mobility issue. Olivia, who has been unapproachable for men throughout the play due to excessive grieving over her lost brother, decides she is completely in love with Viola and wants to marry her/him, without very much of anything resembling courtship. Although it's fine by her, it could be said that Olivia was tricked into getting married, as she doesn't know her groom's true identity until after the fact. Orsino, after crooning over Olivia the entirety of the play, doesn't take time to cry over her, but, upon discovering Viola's true identity, says, "Oh, what the hell. I think I'll get married too". Yet again in this instance, no courtship takes place, as Orsino only knows Viola's true gender for a few seconds before deciding they'd make a perfect couple. Then comes the unexplained marriage of Sir Toby and Maria, for which the only explanation offered is that they had such a good time scheming against Malvolio that they decided to make it a permanent partnership. None of these motivations are logical or make any sense at all. Paired with the fact that all three marriages involved upward movement in social status, this makes for a humdinger of an ending that doesn't quite fit the mold. Normally Shakespeare's characters, alth...
