As You Like It by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Directed by LAVINA JADHWANI
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
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 teachers and individual personal use, no part of this Play Guide ADMINISTRATION 612.225.6000 may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic BOX OFFICE 612.377.2224 or 1.877.44.STAGE (toll-free) or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in guthrietheater.org • Joseph Haj, artistic director writing from the publishers. Some materials published herein are written especially for our Guide. Others are reprinted by permission of their publishers. 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 stir the heart, open the mind and build community through the illumination of our by the Minnesota State Legislature. The Minnesota State Arts Board received additional funds to support this activity from 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. [email protected]. 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 Duke Senior Synopsis 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.