As You Like It research

As You Like It is one of Shakespeare's many well known comedies such as A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest etc. Many of the comedies that Shakespeare wrote had a running theme of romance and a prominent sense of mischief in all shapes and forms. This was created in many different ways, one primal example in As You Like It is when Rosalind disguises herself as a man and then, in a way, teaches Orlando the perfect way to act around her when she becomes Rosalind again and not Ganymede. 

           Shakespeare, more often than not, usually has hidden meanings or messages in his plays. Whether they be to do with Politics or Social or even Religious conditions that were embedded within his society. This play is in a way mocking the trend at the time (1600) which was to live in the beautiful and rich countryside. At the time there was a celebration of life in the country dictating that everyone who was able to achieve aThe city was then portrayed as dirty and dingy, a place very much for people who were poor (peasants) and rich more respectable citizens of society were able to breathe the fresh air of the country. Shakespeare used the increasing popularity of pastoral comedy to create a play appealing to the many people unable to actually visit the countryside. This is why the play is called “As You Like It” because he wrote it to mock the popularity of the fad and please his audience.

              There are three other elements that run through Shakespeare’s As You Like It. One would be the element of romance, this acts as a kind of base for the play. This particular theme runs through many of Shakespeare’s plays whether it is the main point of the play or just part of the plot. In ‘As You Like It’, it serves as the central theme. Another very significant theme in this play is that of Usurpation and Injustice, this is shown when Frederick steals the role of his elder brother Duke Senior and forces him to leave the court or else. Another example is when Oliver de Boys takes the privileges from his younger brother Orlando and treats him so horribly that Orlando has to find another way to get his fortune that he is rightly owed. Both men then take refuge in the forest, where justice is eventually restored "through nature”. The last theme that Shakespeare appears to use is Forgiveness. This is used to end the play on a good note and ends with Duke Frederick restoring the Dukedom to Duke Senior who then “returns the forest to the dears”. Oliver also learns to love Orlando as his brother. I believe that Shakespeare ended on this happy note for this particular play because it was written to please the people going to see it.

            The single most prominent theme is the Pastoral Comedy theme. This is shown throughout and is the entire basis for the play.Shakespeare uses this idea to criticize the social behaviour that leads to injustice, and to make fun of “anti-social, foolish and self-destructive behaviour”. Shakespeare himself didn’t believe in such ideas and his opinions were almost always hidden in his plays, or in this case shown in his plays. He goes about it in a way that could be seen as attacking the subject and really trying to present it in the proper way to his audience. He uses things such as the contrast between the genuine love found in Rosalind for Orlando with Orlando’s “sentimentalized affections” towards Rosalind.

The design of the Globe stage is very different to any modern theatre presented today. There were different levels of sitting/standing and where you were situated depended on your social status. On the floor directly in front of the stage, was where the people with the lowest status stood. This area was called the Groundlings and was typically packed. It was loud and dirty because

in those days coming to the theatre wasn’t about the play, it was about socialising and this usually included people getting drunk and making a mess. This usually led to fights from this point in the theatre because of the rowdy nature of the crowds. It cost 1 penny to enter. The next section is the seated section located just above the standing area, this is seen to be two different levels. This was if you wanted to pay a little bit more money for the theatre but it was still mostly used for socialising rather than watching the play.

            How the Globe looked and was designed meant that the Theatre was a much different occasion to what it is like today. The theatre today is a very sophisticated occasion where everyone is quiet when the show begins. They are polite and sit in silence whilst the play carries out, then clap at the end and show respect to the actors. This was very much not the case in Elizabethan times when the globe opened. Going to the theatre was a very social occasion where the goers were rowdy and rude. They would usually talk through the whole performance with no regards to the actors at all. This is the major difference to theatre now and then. 

           In Shakespearean times the plays were much more literal in the sense that they would tell you exactly what they are doing and where they are. When they come on stage they would present the scene telling you what is going on and where they are. In As You Like It this would be an example such as the wood or court. They did this because they used little scenery. For example, instead of building trees and woodland for the scenes in the forest they used the posts in the Globe Theatre to portray the trees. In one of Orlando’s scenes he is putting love letters and poems up in the forest to convey his love for Rosalind and explains whilst he is putting them on the posts that they are in fact trees. I believe that in A Midsummer Night’s Dream he subtly addresses this particular feature in the worker’s play “Pyramus and Thisbe” and almost mocks it. The humorous character Bottom constantly explains what is going on even when his character within Pyramus and Thisbe is supposed to be dead, making the scene one of the funniest in the play.

            Shakespeare used very minimal props in his plays because they were always more about the acting and words rather than an extravagant set and design. In As You Like It the props used would have been things such as knives and weaponry for the court and some forest scenes and paper for Orlando to put on trees for Rosalind to see. Although not many props were used and the stage was usually quite bare all that were used were critical to the storyline and added a lot to the production of it. The costumes would have been traditional wear for that time period. It was also a very critical part of the production as part of the story includes the disguise for Rosalind to turn into Ganymede. The costume was more important than the scenery as it told the story and helps explain to the audience who the characters were. For example with Rosalind it was to show she had transformed into a man, also for Phoebe her costume was important as it showed her place in the social hierarchy compared to the characters that came from the court. She had more of a mismatched wardrobe showing that she did not possess a lot of money and conveyed the type of lifestyle that she led.

            In comparison to many of the most recent productions of As You Like It, these first original performances can be seen as very minimalist and bare. This being said that is not always the case, as some productions completely show and work with the original concept of performance. For example, we watched a production in which the actors used the bare stage and just brought on props to help convery the storyline. These props included very important things such as the papers that Orlando uses to write poems and lovenotes about Rosalind and also some less important objects like the rabbit that was skinned on stage. They also used makeup and costume to make the story more clear, again with examples such as Rosalind where a beard was drawn on her face to show her becoming a man.