Wurtele Thrust Stage / Feb 9 – March 17, 2019

As You Like It by 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 • 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.” – 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 , 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 , 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 and sets off into the Forest of Arden. Corin, a shepherd Orlando also seeks refuge in the 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 , 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 . 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 ’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 , 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’ , 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 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 ()? 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 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 , scholar, The Invention of the Human, 1998

10 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE 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. and Judith to .

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 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 \ 11 THE 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 follow you around the Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, 1929 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 (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 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 published in the in ca. 1592 Henry IV, Part I; Richard III 1623, and the first documented ca. 1594 ; 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; ; to be one of Shakespeare’s most The Merchant of Venice popular works. ca. 1598 Henry IV, Part I; Henry IV, Part II; The primary source for the ca. 1599 ; play was a pastoral romance in ca. 1600 As You Like It; The Merry Wives of Windsor prose by called ca. 1601 Rosalynde, or Euphues’ Golden ca. 1602 and Cressida Legacy, which dates to around ca. 1602–04 Hamlet 1590. Among the changes ca. 1604 ; 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 ; Touchstone and the melancholic ca. 1608 Pericles; traveler Jaques. ca. 1609–11 The Winter’s Tale ca. 1610 Our 2019 production is the ca. 1611 fifth time the Guthrie has staged ca. 1613 Henry VIII As You Like It: 1966 (Edward ca. 1613–14 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 \ 13 CULTURAL 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 THEATER CULTURAL 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 \ 15 CULTURAL 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 THEATER ADDITIONAL 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 , with After All, Pantheon, 2004. host with a personal tie to the as Rosalind, play investigates the text and as Celia, David Granville-Barker, Harley. Prefaces its interpretations and visits Oyelowo as Orlando, to Shakespeare. Princeton, N.J.: companies in rehearsal and in as Oliver and 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, as Norton and Co., 2004. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/ Orlando and Oliver and 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 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 as lesson plans, study guides and Rosalind and as interactive activities. Orlando, 1936.

GUTHRIE THEATER \ 17