How is twelfth night's love relevant to 21 st century Audiences?

Answer 1

Modern thinking on what is called "gender studies" says that sex and gender are not the same thing. That is to say, a person may be male but have the attitudes and thought processes of a typical female, including sexual attraction to males. Such persons are called transgendered. This kind of dilemma is what Viola faces as Cesario. Although appearing on the outside as an attractive young man, on the inside she is still a woman. This is why Olivia falls for Cesario while Viola, the woman inside Cesario, falls for Orsino.

The concept of transgender is quite new although the phenomenon is, of course, as old as humanity. That means that plays like Twelfth Night have a piquancy in this century they never had before. Curiously, two of Shakespeare's contemporaries, Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker, wrote a play about a real person alive at the time who was a transvestite and very possibly transgendered. The play is called The Roaring Girl and it is about a woman called Mary Frith. It is, however, not as good a play as Twelfth Night.

Malvolio's love for his boss Olivia is also interesting from the point of view of current attitudes toward workplace romance, especially between superiors and subordinates. A workplace is a dangerous place to start a love affair, as stringent rules about "sexual harassment" may result in sanctions being applied, as they are to poor old Malvolio.