As You Like It

For this six-week grading period, I chose to forego seeing a play to read Shakespeare's As You Like It. Considering that I was already performing a monologue from it, I thought it would only benefit me to learn the context of the monologue while reading the work. Just to quickly summarize the plot for future reference, the play begins with the death of Sir Rowland de Bois, leaving his older son, Oliver, with the royal estate and responsibility for his younger brother, Orlando. Oliver, however, refuses to care for Orlando and denies him education, training, and property. Eventually, Orlando challenges Charles, a wrestler from Duke Frederick's court. Charles, however, does not want to fight Orlando for it would bring about criticism if he beat the nobleman. Oliver convinces Charles of an assured victory, but is predictably wrong as Orlando comes out ahead. Duke Frederick has only gained control over his own court by overthrowing his brother, Duke Senior, who has now fled for safety in the Forest of Ardenne. Often compared to a "Robin Hood" type of character, Duke Senior is followed by a band of voluntary exiles. His daughter, Rosalind, was allowed to stay on in the court because she was such good friends with Duke Frederick's daughter, Celia. When the two see the wrestling match, Orlando and Rosalind immediately fall in love. The two eventually must seek refuge in the Forest of Ardenne when Rosalind is suddenly banished with the court and Orlando learns of his brother's plot to kill him. Rosalind takes along with her Celia and Touchstone, the court jester. The two women take on other personas as Rosalind becomes Ganymede, a young man, while Celia becomes Aliena, a common shepherdess. Rosalind and Celia purchase a cottage in the forest where they become acquainted with Silvius, a lovesick shepherd who pines away for the disdainful Phoebe. Eventually, Rosalind meets Orlando and promises to teach him the ways of love if he will come to her each day to woo her. Of course, at this point Rosalind is still a man. As Phoebe inadvertently begins to fall for Ganymede while Orlando becomes tireless of wooing a man, Rosalind arranges for all the rightful couples to meet for unknown marriages. Ensuring that the correct characters end up with their counterparts, Rosalind reveals herself for who she is and she and Orlando are married that day. Celia and Oliver, Silvius and Phoebe, and Touchstone and Audrey are all married. Duke Frederick randomly decides to leave a monastic life, leaving Duke Senior to resume his rightful place over the court.

Though the plot is relatively simple compared to those of Shakespeare's other works, I am have trouble in actually realizing it. Beyond the typical productions of Shakespeare in which authentic sets and contexts are utilized, I would like to somehow adapt the performance to make it more relatable to today's audiences without completely changing it for a high school audience. My target audience would fall somewhere in between there. In adapting the work, however, I would like to keep everything of the actual work save the background to the piece. The only thing I don't want this performance to become is something reminiscent of the modern adaptation of Romeo & Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.

For the performance I have envisioned, I channeled one of our recent theorists...Peter Brook. Well, I channeled Peter Brook in the sense that I wanted to employ the minimalist style demonstrated in A Midsummer Night's Dream. I didn't want to use the white box, per say, but I did want to create this sense of the environment without it being overburdening. Considering that a good portion of the play takes play in the forest, I had the idea for this suspended tree that consisted of essentially just the branches and the leaves. I'm unsure whether to include the actual trunk, so this gigantic tree would be the focus of the scene. I also wanted to make the collage of branches and leaves out of these metal cutouts that have been painted to resemble trees and so on. This way, as time passed while the characters were in the forest, the light shining through the leaves would give off this shadow that I felt would add another element to the performance. With Shakespeare, I feel that there can't be a lot of clutter because then everything becomes muddled with too many things to focus on. For that reason, sets and lighting will all be tailored to give the most natural effect, as if the stage is not really there at all. It's just the actors and the environment.