As You Like It PLAY GUIDE - Guthrie Theater
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Wurtele Thrust Stage / Feb 9 – March 17, 2019
As You Like It
by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
directed by LAVINA JADHWANI
PLAY GUIDE
Inside
THE PLAY
Synopsis, Setting and Characters • 4
From the Director: Lavina Jadhwani • 5
Comments on Some of the Characters • 7
Responses to As You Like It • 9
THE PLAYWRIGHT
William Shakespeare • 11
A Legacy That Continues to Inspire • 12
Shakespeare's Plays • 13
CULTURAL CONTEXT
Character Names and Their Meanings • 14
Selected Glossary of Terms • 15
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
For Further Reading and Understanding • 17
Play guides are made possible by
Guthrie Theater Play Guide
Copyright 2019
DRAMATURG Carla Steen
GRAPHIC DESIGNER Akemi Graves
CONTRIBUTOR Carla Steen
Guthrie Theater, 818 South 2nd Street, Minneapolis, MN 55415 All rights reserved. With the exception of classroom use by
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The Guthrie Theater receives support from the National
The Guthrie creates transformative theater experiences that ignite the imagination, Endowment for the Arts. This activity is made possible in part
by the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation
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common humanity. the National Endowment for the Arts.
2 \ GUTHRIE THEATER
PHOTO: THE CAST OF AS YOU LIKE IT (DAN NORMAN)
“All the world’s a stage, and all the
men and women merely players.”
– Jaques to Duke Senior in As You Like It
About This Guide
This play guide is designed to fuel up on a play before you see it
your curiosity and deepen your onstage. Or perhaps you’re a fellow DIG DEEPER
understanding of a show’s history, theater company doing research If you are a theater
meaning and cultural relevance for an upcoming production. company and would like
so you can make the most of your We’re glad you found your way more information about
theatergoing experience. You might here, and we encourage you to this production, contact
be reading this because you fell in dig in and mine the depths of this Dramaturg Carla Steen at
love with a show you saw at the extraordinary story. carlas@guthrietheater.org.
Guthrie. Maybe you want to read
GUTHRIE THEATER \ 3
THE PLAY
SETTING
The action moves between
Oliver’s house, Duke
Frederick’s court and the
Forest of Arden.
CHARACTERS
Duke Frederick, a usurper
Celia, his daughter
Touchstone, a court fool
Le Beau, a courtier attending
Duke Frederick
Charles, a wrestler in Duke
Frederick’s employ
Duke Senior, Duke Frederick’s
brother, an exile living in the
Forest of Arden
Rosalind, his daughter and
PHOTO: CHRIS THORN AND JESSE BHAMRAH IN AS YOU LIKE IT (DAN NORMAN)
Celia’s cousin
Amiens, a lord attending
Synopsis Duke Senior
Jaques, a melancholy traveler
attending Duke Senior
Cousins Rosalind and Celia are virtually inseparable at court. Rosalind is Oliver, the oldest son of Sir
the daughter of Duke Senior, who was forced into exile when his dukedom Roland de Boys
was usurped by his brother Frederick, Celia’s father. Rosalind’s sadness Jacques de Boys, the middle
over her difficult position is lightened when she meets Orlando, a young son of Sir Roland de Boys
man long mistreated by his brother Oliver, and the attraction is mutual. Orlando, the youngest son of
Sir Roland de Boys
Soon Rosalind, too, is banished from court by the increasingly paranoid Adam, a servant of the
Duke Frederick. With ever-loyal Celia and the irrepressible court jester de Boys family
Touchstone for company, Rosalind disguises herself as a boy named Dennis, a servant of Oliver
Ganymede and sets off into the Forest of Arden.
Corin, a shepherd
Orlando also seeks refuge in the pastoral world of the forest and finds Silvius, a shepherd in love
a welcoming Duke Senior. When Rosalind encounters Orlando in the with Phoebe
forest, she befriends him — as Ganymede — and proposes to cure his Phoebe, a shepherd
lovesickness by pretending to be his Rosalind. scorning Silvius
Audrey, a goatherd
Meanwhile, love abounds in the forest for several other couples. William, a countryman
Touchstone is drawn to the young goatherd Audrey while Silvius and Sir Oliver Martext, a vicar
Phoebe, a pair of shepherds, find their courtship complicated by Phoebe’s Hymen, a goddess
scorn and an unexpected result when she meets Ganymede. But before
the lovers can live happily ever after, families must reunite and disguises
must be discarded.
4 \ GUTHRIE THEATER
THE PLAY
PHOTO: AUSTEN T. FISHER AND LAVINA JADHWANI (NATHAN DALE STUDIOS)
From the Director:
Lavina Jadhwani
As a rom-com aficionado, sports enthusiast and fan of all things Midwest, Chicago-based
director Lavina Jadhwani couldn’t wait to direct As You Like It at the Guthrie. Creating
work on our stages has topped her to-do list for more than a decade, and Shakespeare’s
charming tale of four weddings and a forest fit the bill. Before she arrived for rehearsals,
we asked her to share what was on her mind and how she planned to pull it off while
keeping the text intact.
THE TEXT inclusive) lens. Like Shakespeare, I audience is seeing the play. As
When people hear I’m directing take a populist approach with the a director, I want these different
As You Like It, they often ask, goal of making his stories more time periods to work in harmony
“What are you doing to the play?” accessible to all audiences. while both honoring the story and
While I understand what they’re making it feel relevant. When I
asking, I’m not doing anything THE SETTING considered the themes and politics
to it — I’m a language-based Whenever I direct Shakespeare, of As You Like It, it felt very 2019
director who begins by examining I’m juggling multiple time periods to me. It’s a play about family and
the words and their intentions. at once: when he wrote the play, forgiveness where two seemingly
Then I interpret them through a when he set the play, when we distant worlds start to feel closer
contemporary (and often more are setting the play and when the together, and it’s a story about
GUTHRIE THEATER \ 5
THE PLAY
strong women speaking their truth forest that eventually becomes a The relationship between Oliver
and boldly taking action. beautiful, blossoming spring. Arden and Celia happens so quickly that
is a retreat for the exiles — it’s not it needed to feel genuine. When
THE CAST a vacation. Everything is effortful Oliver says “’Twas I, but ’tis not I”
I always think about how to give and hard-won in the forest, and shows humility, I realized that
more people access to a story including the love stories. Most Celia sees in him what she wants to
when I direct canonical plays. things worth doing usually are. see in her father — a man of status
I’m the daughter of immigrants, who can admit wrongdoing and
which hugely informs my work. I THE WRESTLING MATCH be transformed. For Touchstone
was privileged to have access to I’ve always struggled to understand and Audrey, I built their meet-cute
live performances of Shakespeare the setting of the wrestling match. outside the text because we don’t
plays at a young age, but none of Where are Rosalind and Celia that see them as a couple until they are
the actors looked like me. That’s the match comes to them and about to be married.
one of the reasons why it was not vice versa? As I studied the
deeply important for me to have an text and thought about the play’s THE GODDESS
inclusive cast tell this story. When I gender politics, I pictured them in When I directed As You Like It
think about the thousands of high a boxing gym working out their in Chicago five years ago, I cut
school students who will attend frustrations brought on by the Hymen from the play. Honestly,
this production, I want them to see male-dominated world they live I just wasn’t sure why she was
themselves onstage. in. I like the idea of finding them there. This time around, the
in this masculine, underground toxic masculinity in the court
THE COURT VS. THE FOREST space and having Rosalind know at the top of the play felt very
The relationship between the court about and be interested in the contemporary and relevant, which
and the forest appealed to my wrestling. She’s not just smitten by is why I believed the story needed
Midwestern sensibilities, especially Orlando because he’s a dashing a strong maternal presence at the
because I grew up in the western fighter — she understands the end to bring everyone together.
suburbs of Chicago in between sport of wrestling intimately, and I’ve seen productions where
extremely urban and extremely that’s a language they share. Hymen descends onstage in a
rural communities. The court and Viewing their first encounter supernatural way, but I pictured
the forest are not very far apart though this lens also appealed to her emerging from a wall of trees
geographically, but by the end of my inner sports fan. as a beautiful, earthly presence
the play, they feel closer spiritually. who is one with the forest and has
The generous spirit of Arden — and THE RELATIONSHIPS always been there, transforming
the cold winter climates — also I love romantic comedies, so I the characters — and all of
felt very Midwestern. I wanted wanted to create unique meet- us — from within.
this production of As You Like cutes — a film term for amusing
It to feel more personal to me, first encounters — for the four
the acting company and the couples. For Rosalind and Orlando,
Guthrie’s audiences. it felt more traditional — they meet
at the wrestling match and sparks
THE FOREST OF ARDEN fly. In contrast, Silvius has been
Arden is often over-romanticized. wooing Phoebe for years despite
I’ve seen many productions her resistance, which makes their
(and even directed one) where lightbulb moment more complex.
the forest feels beautiful and But the actors found it in the
autumnal, but the text speaks of audition scene, when she suddenly
danger and “winter and rough realizes he’s the guy she always
weather.” Oliver mentions lions and goes to after a hard day’s work. It
snakes and recounts a near-death really makes you root for them as
experience. In our production, the a couple.
characters must endure a bitterly
cold Midwestern winter in the
6 \ GUTHRIE THEATER
THE PLAY
Comments on Some of the Characters
THE DUKES: TWO HALVES Everything about Rosalind breathes affectionate impulses. She has as
OF THE SAME COIN? of “youth and youth’s sweet much tenderness as mirth, and in
prim.” She is fresh as the morning, her most petulant raillery there is a
The fact that Duke Senior is one sweet as the dew-awakened touch of softness. …
of the two dukes — one wicked, blossoms, and light as the breeze
one virtuous — laying claim to the that plays among them. She is as The impression left upon our hearts
same dukedom suggests that the witty, as voluble, as sprightly as and minds by the character of
underlying structure of the play Beatrice [from Much Ado About Rosalind is like a delicious strain of
is in part one of psychological Nothing]; but in a style altogether music. There is a depth of delight,
splitting. On one level there are distinct. In both, the wit is equally and a subtlety of words to express
indeed two dukes, and the rightful unconscious; but in Beatrice it plays that delight, which is enchanting.
Duke, whose name declares about us like the lightning, dazzling
his seniority, regains his proper but also alarming; while the wit of Anna Brownell Jameson, British writer and
place, while his usurping brother, Rosalind bubbles up and sparkles art historian, Women: Moral, Poetical, and
Duke Frederick, is converted in like the living fountain, refreshing Historical, 1833
the woods — offstage — by a all around. Her volubility is like the
convenient hermit and vanishes bird’s song; it is the outpouring of
from the play. On another level a heart filled to overflowing with
there is one duke, with the capacity life, love, and joy, and all sweet and
to behave both badly and well. His
usurping repressive nature in the PHOTO: MEGHAN KREIDLER AND JESSE BHAMRAH IN AS YOU LIKE IT (DAN NORMAN)
court (where he is “Frederick”)
is overcome by a change of
character in the wood, or fantasy
world (where he is “Duke Senior”),
and his return to his dukedom is
assured by the victory of his better
nature, exemplified in part by the
good treatment accorded to both
Rosalind and Celia.
Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All,
New York: Anchor Books, 2004
ROSALIND: A DELICIOUS
STRAIN OF MUSIC
Though Rosalind is a princess,
she is a princess of Arcady; and
notwithstanding the charming
effect produced by her first scenes,
we scarcely ever think of her with
a reference to them, or associate
her with a court, and the artificial
appendages of her rank. She was
not made to “lord it o’er a fair
mansion,” … but to breathe the free
air of heaven, and frolic among
green leaves. …
GUTHRIE THEATER \ 7
THE PLAY
TOUCHSTONE AND JAQUES: His famous “All the world’s a stage”
MOTLEY FOOL AND speech, recited by innumerable
MELANCHOLY PHILOSOPHER school-children across the ages,
contains memorable rhetoric, but it
Shakespeare’s most important is essentially hollow and abstract,
addition to his source materials sadly cynical, denying value in the
was the introduction of the two key human experience. One can gain
commentators: Jaques, melancholy, much insight by going over it, age
sad, satiric and solemn, and by age, and considering what has
Touchstone, the ironic, laughing been left out. Mostly, it is joy and
observer. They are the reality achievement. The speech, ultimately,
testers, regularly undercutting is not all that far removed from
the potential sweetness of the Macbeth’s “tale told by an idiot,”
traditional pastoral setting. Jaques suggesting meaninglessness, a mere
is the satirist of life everywhere, shallow performance.
finding it empty, miserable and
sad, while Touchstone cheerfully Touchstone is the other significant
challenges and mocks most commentator, important in defining
everything, seeing the human things. Jaques reports to the
existence full of folly and absurdity. company with great glee, “A fool,
a fool! I met a fool i’th’ forest,/A PHOTO: SARAH AGNEW AND ANGELA TIMBERMAN IN AS YOU LIKE IT
(DAN NORMAN)
[Jaques] is a familiar figure from motley fool,” and while the forest
two extensive literary traditions. is full of fools and foolishness, this one of the basic realities of comedy,
One is melancholy, the other one is special: “O noble fool!/A the guarantor of the continuation
satire. Melancholy is one of the worthy fool!” The fool was a familiar of our human carnival, with all its
most vague, diverse, amorphous presence in Elizabethan plays and delights and follies. Through much
and important topics in English life. The “natural fool” was the of the play Touchstone has deflated
literature across many centuries. genuinely mad, insane, unstable, the familiar, exaggerated and
Its roots go back to the medieval seriously disturbed person. Bedlam idealized views of love with sharp
period (and far beyond), and it was full of them. The professional wit and a vivid dose of realism, but
was of great interest in Elizabethan fool, by contrast, was an artist, he knows all too well our passionate
England, as we can see from the an entertainer, who could sing, needs (“man hath his desires”) and
numerous works that deal with this dance and play, a commentator, appreciates the value of a vital
subject produced by all kinds of an interpreter, a social satirist. The and sexual woman. He may have
poets, playwrights, and scholars. professional fools, also called operated with a child’s comical view
allowed or licensed fools, were of romance and sexuality, but at the
Satire is such a mixed dish of privileged jesters. close of the play he insists on being
attitudes. It exposes, ridicules, with the lovers.
derides, attacks human behavior Touchstone is a significant
and attitudes. It operates with commentator on the human Archibald I. Leyasmeyer, associate professor
contempt, but regularly claims scene, but unlike Jaques, he is of English at the University of Minnesota
the expectation of reform. It can also an eager participant, both as from 1964–2003 and a former Guthrie board
be mild and gentle, or fierce and a fool and a lover. He is a fool, by member, excerpted from “Magic Circles in
destructive; comic and funny, or definition, and he is determined to the Forest,” originally written for the study
deeply tragic; playful and witty, be a part of the circle of love. He guide for the 2005 Guthrie production of As
or full of moral indignation. The knows that sexuality is the great You Like It
satirist can be the objective leveler. We all, Dukes, courtiers,
observer, the wise fool, the angry fools, servants, shepherds, vicars,
moralist (Jonathan Swift’s savage audience members, whether at the
indignation lacerating his heart), Globe or the Guthrie, dream dreams
the cynical commentator, the of sexual glory, desire to participate,
playful exposer of human frailty, the attempt to partake of it. It is one of
tragic participant. the most basic needs of our lives,
8 \ GUTHRIE THEATER
THE PLAY
Responses to As You Like It
Of this play the fable is wild and written for the most part in prose “I am not merry; but I do beguile/
pleasing. I know not how the ladies instead of in blank verse, which The thing I am by seeming
will approve the facility with which any fool can write. And such otherwise,” says Desdemona on
both Rosalind and Celia give away prose! The first scene alone, with the quay at Cyprus and on the
their hearts. To Celia much may its energy of exposition, each edge of her tragedy. The similarity
be forgiven for the heroism of her phrase driving its meaning and is startling. It clinches, as it were,
friendship. The character of Jaques feeling up to the head at one brief, the impression Rosalind makes
is natural and well preserved. sure stroke, is worth ten acts of on those who admire her most:
The comick dialogue is very ordinary Elizabethan sing-song. … that she had it in her, in Cordelia’s
sprightly, with less mixture of low The popularity of Rosalind is due words, to outfrown a falser
buffoonery than in some other to three main causes. First, she fortune’s frown than any she is
plays; and the graver part is only speaks blank verse for a few called on to face in this comedy.
elegant and harmonious. minutes. Second, she only wears
a skirt for a few minutes (and the Harold C. Goddard, professor of English,
Samuel Johnson, poet and critic, dismal effect of the change at the The Meaning of Shakespeare, 1951
The Plays of William Shakespeare, 1765 end to the wedding-dress ought to
convert the stupidest champion of My eye was caught by the words
It seems to be the poet’s design to petticoats to rational dress). As You Like It. There it was in bold
show that to call forth the poetry letters: Matinee half-past two, As
which has its indwelling in nature Third, she makes love to the man You Like It, the only play of yours
and the human mind, nothing is instead of waiting for the man against which I have never heard a
wanted but to throw off all to make love to her — a piece of word, the play above suspicion. So I
artificial constraint, and restore natural history which has kept paid my money and went in. Now I
both to mind and nature their Shakespeare’s heroines alive, must confess it. I don’t like your As
original liberty. whilst generations of properly You Like It. I’m sorry, but I find it far
governessed young ladies, taught too hearty, a sort of advertisement
August Wilhelm Schlegel, German poet to say “no” three time at least, have for beer, unpoetic and, frankly,
and scholar, Lectures on Dramatic Art miserably perished. not very funny. When you have
and Literature, 1809 one villain repenting because he’s
George Bernard Shaw, playwright and nearly been eaten by a lion and
Shakespear has here converted critic, Dramatic Opinions and Essays with another villain at the head of his
the forest of Arden into another an Apology, a review of a production at St. army “converted from the world”
Arcadia, where they “fleet the time James’ Theatre, December 1896 because he happens to meet an
carelessly, as they did in the golden “old religious man” and has “some
world.” It is the most ideal of any of In no other comedy of question” with him, I really lose
this author’s plays. It is a pastoral Shakespeare’s is the heroine so all patience.
drama, in which the interest arises all-important as Rosalind is in this
more out of the sentiments and one; she makes the play almost as So now, dear author, I don’t know
characters than out of the action or completely as Hamlet does Hamlet. what to say. I find most of your
situation. It is not what is done, She seems ready to transcend the plays miraculous — except As
but what is said, that claims rather light piece in which she finds You Like It. The critics find most
our attention. herself and, if only the plot would of your plays a bore — except As
let her, to step straight into tragedy. You Like It. The public loves them
William Hazlitt, English critic, Characters of When Celia, in the second scene all — including As You Like It. Why
Shakespear’s Plays, 1817 of the play, begs her cousin to be this odd division? What links these
more merry, Rosalind, in the first strangely contradictory attitudes?
Notwithstanding [its] drawbacks, words she utters, replies: “Dear Could the fact that I did As You
the fascination of As You Like Celia, I show more mirth than I am Like It for School Certificate have
It is still very great. It has the mistress of; and would you yet I anything to do with it? Would
overwhelming advantage of being were merrier?” going as a professional duty to
GUTHRIE THEATER \ 9
THE PLAY
every new Shakespeare production,
willy-nilly year in and year out,
make them all merge into a
nightmare School Certificate blur?
I wonder.
Peter Brook, theater director, “An Open
Letter to William Shakespeare,” The Shifting
Point, 1987
Compared with most of
Shakespeare’s comparable plays,
As You Like It noticeably lacks a
strong forward thrust. The other
comedies have pressing questions:
Can Antonio be saved from Shylock
(The Merchant of Venice)? Will the
mixups created by Oberon’s magic
love-juice in A Midsummer Night’s
Dream be sorted out? How will
the shrew be tamed in the play of PHOTO: SARAH AGNEW AND MARIKA PROCTOR IN AS YOU LIKE IT (DAN NORMAN)
that name? Instead of forces like
these pressing us onward, what Of all Shakespeare’s plays, the I don’t know how it is in America,
we have in the Forest of Arden accurately titled As You Like It is but in England students had to
is something like “time out” in a as much set in an earthly realm read As You Like It a good deal in
basketball game. While the clock is of possible good as King Lear schools and act it too, and at that
on, the action rushes forward. Then and Macbeth are set in earthly time I found it dull. The trouble is
the clock is stopped, and there hells. And of all Shakespeare’s that it’s not a play for kids. It’s very
is a period of time that doesn’t comic heroines, Rosalind is the sophisticated, and only adults can
“count.” Urgencies are suspended. most gifted, as remarkable in her understand what it’s about. You
Time is out: out of its customary mode as Falstaff and Hamlet are have to be acquainted with what it
course, displaced from the usual in theirs. Shakespeare has been means to be a civilized person, and
relentless sequence, not pressing so subtle and so careful in writing a child or adolescent won’t have
on with problems to be solved and Rosalind’s role that we never such knowledge.
deadlines to be met, liberated from quite awaken to her uniqueness
its own rules. … Time in As You among his (or all literature’s) heroic W.H. Auden, poet, Lectures on Shakespeare,
Like It is, as Helen Gardner says, wits. A normative consciousness, Princeton University Press, 2000
“unmeasured”: rather than events harmoniously balanced and
pushing us forward, we get more of beautifully sane, she is the
a sense of space, “a space in which indubitable ancestress of Elizabeth
to work things out.” Bennet in Pride and Prejudice,
though she has a social freedom
Susan Snyder, scholar, “As You Like It: A beyond Jane Austen’s careful
Modern Perspective,” Folger Shakespeare limitations.
Library edition of the play, 1997
Harold Bloom, scholar, The Invention of the
Human, 1998
10 \ GUTHRIE THEATERTHE PLAYWRIGHT
William Shakespeare
18, Shakespeare married Anne
Hathaway, and the couple would
have three children: Susanna
in 1583 and twins Hamnet and
Judith in 1585.
After an eight-year gap where
Shakespeare’s activity is not
known, he appeared in London
by 1592 and quickly began
to make a name for himself
as a prolific playwright. He
stayed in London for about 20
years, becoming increasingly
successful in his work as an
actor, writer and shareholder in
his acting company. Retirement
took him back to Stratford
to lead the life of a country
gentleman. His son Hamnet died
at age 11, but both daughters
William Shakespeare were married: Susanna to Dr.
John Hall and Judith to
Thomas Quiney.
Shakespeare died in Stratford
in 1616 on April 23, which is
thought to be his birthday. He
is buried in the parish church,
where his grave can be seen
to this day. His known body
William Shakespeare was writing. While much of the of work includes at least 37
born in 1564 to John and biographical information is plays, two long poems and 154
Mary Arden Shakespeare and sketchy and incomplete, for a sonnets.
raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, person of his class and as the
Warwickshire, in England’s son of a town alderman, quite a
West Country. lot of information is available.
Much of the information Young Shakespeare would have
about him comes from official attended the Stratford grammar
documents such as wills, legal school, where he would have
documents and court records. learned to read and write not
There are also contemporary only English, but also Latin and
references to him and his some Greek. In 1582, at age
GUTHRIE THEATER \ 11THE PLAYWRIGHT
A Legacy That Continues to Inspire
The Poetry of Shakespeare was His characters are intimately bound character or event has not only a
Inspiration indeed: he is not so up with the audience. That is why large number of interpretations,
much an Imitator as an Instrument his plays are the greatest example but an unlimited number. Which
of Nature; and ’tis not so just to say there is of a people’s theater; in is the characteristic of reality. …
that he speaks from her, as that she this theater the public found and An artist may try to capture and
speaks through him. still finds its own problems and re- reflect your action, but actually he
experiences them. interprets it – so that a naturalistic
Alexander Pope, Preface to The Works of painting, a Picasso painting, a
Shakespeare, 1725 Jean-Paul Sartre, On Theater, 1959 photograph, are all interpretations.
But in itself, the action of one
We do not understand Shakespeare [A]lthough each play is a separate man touching his head is open
from a single reading, and certainly and individual work of art, they all to unlimited understanding and
not from a single play. There is a generally illuminate one another, interpretation. In reality, that is.
relation between the various plays and taken together they form an What Shakespeare wrote carries
of Shakespeare, taken in order; and impressive achievement in which that characteristic. What he wrote
it is work of years to venture even each individual play acquires is not interpretations: it is the
one individual interpretation of the more weight and dignity when thing itself.
pattern in Shakespeare’s carpet. placed against the background
of the whole corpus. Each play Peter Brook, “What is Shakespeare?” (1947),
T. S. Eliot, Dante, Faber & Faber, 1929 is more or less a landmark in the in The Shifting Point, Harper & Row, 1987
road along which Shakespeare the
Shakespeare’s mind is the type artist traveled, or, to change the
of the androgynous, of the man- metaphor, each play is a variation
woman mind. … It is fatal for on a number of themes that recur Every age creates its
anyone who writes to think of their in the poet’s work.
sex. It is fatal to be a man or a
own Shakespeare.
woman pure and simple; one must M.M. Badawn, Background to Shakespeare, … Like a portrait
be woman-manly or man-womanly. Macmillian India Limited, 1981 whose eyes seem to
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, 1929
follow you around the
If one takes those thirty-seven room, engaging your
plays with all the radar lines of glance from every
the different viewpoints of the
angle, [his] plays
different characters, one comes out
with a field of incredible density and their characters
and complexity; and eventually seem always to be
one goes a step further, and one
“modern,” always to
finds that what happened, what
passed through this man called be “us.”
Shakespeare and came into
Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After
existence on sheets of paper, is
All, Anchor Books, 2004
something quite different from
any other author’s work. It’s not
Shakespeare’s view of the world,
it’s something which actually
resembles reality. A sign of this
is that any single word, line,
PHOTO: LUIS VEGA AND ANDREA SAN MIGUEL IN AS YOU LIKE IT
(DAN NORMAN)THE PLAYWRIGHT
Shakespeare’s Plays
PHOTOS: ZLATO RIZZIOLLI, WAYNE T. CARR AND SAM WICK IN PERICLES (JENNY GRAHAM); NATHANIEL FULLER IN KING LEAR (T CHARLES ERICKSON); KATE EASTMAN IN ROMEO AND JULIET (JENNY GRAHAM)
EARLY PERIOD
As You Like It dates to around ca. 1587–92 The Two Gentlemen of Verona
1599–1600 during Shakespeare’s ca. 1589–90 Titus Andronicus
mature period. While it may have ca. 1590 Henry IV, Part II
been performed at court by 1603, ca. 1590–91 Henry IV, Part III
no evidence remains. It was first ca. 1591 The Taming of the Shrew
published in the First Folio in ca. 1592 Henry IV, Part I; Richard III
1623, and the first documented ca. 1594 The Comedy of Errors; Love’s Labour’s Lost
performance was in 1723 — in
an adaptation that left out the MIDDLE PERIOD
clowns! Since the mid-18th ca. 1595 Richard II; Romeo and Juliet
century, the play has continued ca. 1596 A Midsummer Night’s Dream; King John;
to be one of Shakespeare’s most The Merchant of Venice
popular works. ca. 1598 Henry IV, Part I; Henry IV, Part II;
Much Ado About Nothing
The primary source for the ca. 1599 Henry V; Julius Caesar
play was a pastoral romance in ca. 1600 As You Like It; The Merry Wives of Windsor
prose by Thomas Lodge called ca. 1601 Twelfth Night
Rosalynde, or Euphues’ Golden ca. 1602 Troilus and Cressida
Legacy, which dates to around ca. 1602–04 Hamlet
1590. Among the changes ca. 1604 Othello; Measure for Measure
Shakespeare made to the story ca. 1605–06 All’s Well That Ends Well; King Lear; Macbeth
were several name changes,
including Celia and Orlando, LATE PERIOD
and the additions of the clown ca. 1606 Timon of Athens; Antony and Cleopatra
Touchstone and the melancholic ca. 1608 Pericles; Coriolanus
traveler Jaques. ca. 1609–11 The Winter’s Tale
ca. 1610 Cymbeline
Our 2019 production is the ca. 1611 The Tempest
fifth time the Guthrie has staged ca. 1613 Henry VIII
As You Like It: 1966 (Edward ca. 1613–14 The Two Noble Kinsmen
Payson Call, director), 1982 (Liviu
Ciulei, director), 1994 (Garland Authorship and dating of Shakespeare’s plays is a subject of much academic
Wright, director) and 2005 debate. These dates are speculative, but are the “most probable” dating from The
(Joe Dowling, director). New Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works.
GUTHRIE THEATER \ 13CULTURAL CONTEXT
Character Names and Their Meanings
Rosalind Adam Amiens
Lovely, beautiful, sweet rose One of the two original inhabitants May be derived from the French
(Spanish: rosa linda) of Eden; the first man word “ami” meaning friend
or companion
Ganymede Touchstone
A beautiful Trojan youth abducted Dark, flinty stone used to test Sir Oliver Martext
by Zeus who became cupbearer to purity of gold or silver; broadly, “Mar-” as a prefix means “a person
the gods a touchstone is a standard or who mars”; in 1588–1589, a group
criterion of English Puritans secretly printed
Celia a number of pamphlets attacking
Heavenly; Shakespeare’s use of the Le Beau the Anglican Church that were
name introduced it to the public at Beautiful, handsome authored by “Martin Marprelate”
large in England and included many nonce-words
Silvius like mar-priest and mar-church;
Aliena Wood, forest (Latin: silva) Shakespeare may be referring to
Stranger (in Latin) that in naming his priest Martext,
Phoebe perhaps to describe a “priest that
de Boys Bright, pure (Greek); was used as lacks Latin”
Of the woods a given name in England after the
Protestant Reformation Corin
Orlando French and English version of an
The Italian version of the French Audrey old Roman name meaning “spear”
name Roland (meaning “famous A diminutive of the Anglo-Saxon
land”), a hero of Charlemagne name Aetheldred; toward the end William
romances, where Oliver (Olivier) of the Middle Ages, it fell out of Strong-willed warrior; popular
also appears as the hero’s friend favor because the word “tawdry” English name after William
was derived from St. Audrey, a the Conqueror and the
Oliver fair where cheap lace could be playwright himself
Ancestor’s descendant; fell out purchased, but it came back in the
of favor in England after Oliver 19th century
Cromwell’s brief rise to power in
the 17th century Dennis
English form of Denis; a French
Jacques form of Dionysus, the Greek god
Supplanter (French); a form of wine
of Jacob
Frederick
Jaques Peace ruler, from a Germanic name
Variant of Jacques; in its
monosyllabic form (“jakes”), it was Charles
an Elizabethan word for toilet Free man; derived from the German
name, Karl
PHOTO: SUN MEE CHOMET AND MAX WOJTANOWICZ IN AS YOU LIKE IT
(DAN NORMAN)
14 \ GUTHRIE THEATERCULTURAL CONTEXT
Selected Glossary of Terms
clown fall
A Rustic, country bumpkin In wrestling, a bout or point
“Holla, you, clown!” “You shall try but one fall”
Arden (Touchstone, 2.4.48) (Duke Frederick, 1.2.116)
A forest in Warwickshire, near
Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s conceit feigning
hometown; in Thomas Lodge’s Understanding Imaginative, fictitious; deceiving
Rosalynde, the primary source for “That I know you are a gentleman “Most friendship is feigning”
As You Like It, the forest was called of good conceit” (Rosalind, 5.2.38) (Amiens, 2.7.159)
Ardenne (or Ardennes), an ancient
forest in northeastern France, counterfeit forsworn
which is why there are so many Pretend Perjured, falsely sworn
French references in the play “Now counterfeit to swoon, why, “And yet was not the knight
now fall down” (Phoebe, 3.5.17) forsworn” (Touchstone, 1.2.39–41)
argument
Topic, subject matter
“Hath not Fortune sent in this fool
D G
to cut off the argument?”
(Celia, 1.2.30–32) desert Gargantua
A remote, empty place A legendary giant known for his
assayed “That in this desert inaccessible” large appetite
Attempted, tried (Orlando, 2.7.89) “You must borrow me Gargantua’s
“What if we assayed to steal/ mouth first” (Celia, 3.2.146)
The clownish fool”
(Rosalind, 1.3.105–106) gentle
E Noble
atomies “Why I am sorry for thee, gentle
Dust, motes, specks entertainment Silvius” (Phoebe, 3.5.82)
“Who shut their coward gates on Food and lodging; hospitality
atomies” (Phoebe, 3.5.13) “Can in this desert place buy greenwood
entertainment” (Rosalind, 2.4.56) A wood or forest in leaf, usually
associated with outlaws or exiles
B envious “Under the greenwood tree”
Malicious (Amiens, 2.5.1)
breeding “More free from peril than the
“Noble” blood; education envious court?” (Duke Senior, 2.1.4) grow upon me
“And will you, being a woman of To become troublesome;
your breeding” (Jaques, 3.3.43) to take liberties
“Is it even so, begin you to grow
F upon me?” (Oliver, 1.1.51)
C fain
Gladly, willingly
caparisoned “I would fain see this meeting”
Dressed, decked out (Jaques, 3.3.26)
“Though I am caparisoned like a
man” (Rosalind, 3.2.129)
GUTHRIE THEATER \ 15CULTURAL CONTEXT
matter
H Good sense, ideas, topics
W
“For then she’s full of matter”
honest (Duke Senior, 2.1.54) Wit, whither wilt?
Chaste Proverbial saying meaning “Where
“As the most capricious poet misprized are your senses?”; usually said to
honest Ovid was among the Goths” Despised someone who talks too much
(Touchstone, 3.3.4–5) “That I am altogether misprized” “He might say, ‘Wit, whither wilt?’”
(Oliver, 1.1.105) (Orlando, 4.1.94)
humorous
Ill-humored, temperamental modern world
“The Duke is humorous” Commonplace Worldly things
(Le Beau, 1.2.173–174) “Of wise saws and modern “Was converted/Both from his
instances” (Jaques, 2.7.132) enterprise and from the world”
(Jacques de Boys, 5.4.116–117)
I motley
A professional jester, like
ill-favoredly Touchstone, who would wear Sources include notes to the New
Ugly multicolored clothing Cambridge Shakespeare and Arden
“Those that she makes honest she “I met a fool i’th’forest/A motley Shakespeare editions of the play;
makes very ill-favoredly” fool” (Jaques, 2.7.12–13) Shakespeare’s Words by David
(Celia, 1.2.26–27) Crystal and Ben Crystal; Oxford
English Dictionary; and Brewer’s
inland bred
P Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.
Raised in civilized society
“Yet am I inland bred” philosophy
(Orlando, 2.7.77) Practical wisdom
“Hast any philosophy in thee,
ipse shepherd?” (Touchstone, 3.2.16)
Taken from classical Latin, ipse
means himself, itself, oneself, the poetical
very person or thing Skills and faculties of a poet;
“For all your writers do consent worthy of being celebrated in verse
that ‘ipse’ is he. Now you are ipse, by poets
but I am she.” “I would the gods had made thee
(Touchstone, 5.1.32–33) poetical” (Touchstone, 3.3.5)
M S
make you simples
Are you doing; to create or fashion Ingredients
“Now, sir, what make you here?” “Compounded of many simples”
“Nothing: I am not taught to make (Jaques, 4.1.11)
anything.” (Oliver/Orlando, 1.1.15–16)
skirts
marry Border, edges
A mild oath derived from “by “Here in the skirts of the forest”
Mary”; a pun on “mar” (Rosalind, 3.2.185)
“Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar
that which God made” stir this gamester
(Orlando, 1.1.18) Torment this athlete
“Now will I stir this gamester”
(Oliver, 1.1.100)
16 \ GUTHRIE THEATERADDITIONAL INFORMATION
For Further Reading and Understanding
Shakespeare Unlimited
AS YOU LIKE IT EDITIONS BOOKS
A biweekly podcast produced
(GENERAL SHAKESPEARE STUDIES)
by the Folger Shakespeare
As You Like It, The New
Library that features interviews
Cambridge Shakespeare, edited by Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Guide to
with Shakespeare experts on
Michael Hattaway. Shakespeare (two volumes). New
topics ranging from adapting
York: Avenel Books, 1970.
Shakespeare to what Elizabethans
As You Like It, The Arden
ate to discussions about
Shakespeare, edited by Auden, W.H. Lectures on
current productions.
Agnes Latham. Shakespeare. New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 2000.
Internet Shakespeare Editions
Shakespeare in Production: As You
http://internetshakespeare.uvic.
Like It, edited by Cynthia Marshall. Coye, Dale F. Pronouncing
ca/index.html
Shakespeare’s Words: A Guide
A collection of materials on
As You Like It, The Folger from A to Zounds. Westport,
Shakespeare and his plays, an
Shakespeare Library, edited Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998.
extensive archive of productions
by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul
and production materials.
Werstine. Crystal, David and Ben Crystal,
Shakespeare’s Words: A Glossary
Shakespeare Uncovered
and Language Companion, New
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/
FILMS York: Penguin Books, 2002.
shakespeare-uncovered/
A series that goes in-depth
As You Like It, directed and Garber, Marjorie, Shakespeare
into one play per episode. A
adapted by Kenneth Branagh, with After All, Pantheon, 2004.
host with a personal tie to the
Bryce Dallas Howard as Rosalind,
play investigates the text and
Romola Garai as Celia, David Granville-Barker, Harley. Prefaces
its interpretations and visits
Oyelowo as Orlando, Adrian Lester to Shakespeare. Princeton, N.J.:
companies in rehearsal and in
as Oliver and Brian Blessed as the Princeton University Press, 1947.
performance. Full episodes are
Dukes, 2006.
available online.
Greenblatt, Stephen, Will in the
As You Like It, directed by World: How Shakespeare Became
MIT Shakespeare: The Complete
Christine Edzard, with Emma Croft Shakespeare, New York: W.W.
Works Online
as Rosalind, Andrew Tiernan as Norton and Co., 2004.
http://shakespeare.mit.edu/
Orlando and Oliver and James Fox
as Jaques, 1992. Shapiro, James, Contested Will:
PlayShakespeare.com: The
Who Wrote Shakespeare?, Simon
Ultimate Free Shakespeare
As You Like It, directed by Basil & Schuster, 2001.
Resource
Coleman, with Helen Mirren as
https://playshakespeare.com/
Rosalind, Brian Stirner as Orlando
After registration, receive access
and Richard Easton as Duke ONLINE
to the full texts of the plays,
Frederick, 1978.
synopses, the First Folio and study
Folger Shakespeare Library
aids; also produces a smartphone
As You Like It, directed by www.folger.edu
app with the full texts of the plays.
Paul Czinner, adapted by J.M. A wealth of resources, including
Barrie, with Elisabeth Bergner as lesson plans, study guides and
Rosalind and Laurence Olivier as interactive activities.
Orlando, 1936.
GUTHRIE THEATER \ 17You can also read
