As You Like It - Researching Classical Plays

'As You Like It' was written by one of the most influential writers of all time, William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Shakespeare's works were collected and printed in various editions in the century following his death and by the early eighteenth century his reputation as "the greatest poet ever to write in English" was well established. William Shakespeare also wrote other plays such as Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, and Much Ado about Nothing and many more.

Shakespeare’s original Globe Theatre was open to the sky; there was no scenery; one permanent structure called The Tiring House existed which “served as a background for all scenes”. The main acting area was one platform, a thrust stage that jutted out into the audience. This platform was approximately 24 feet across the front, 41 feet across the widest part at the back and 29 feet deep. The main stage entrances were large doors at either side of the stage or seen in the diagram. At the back was a curtained recess known as the study that might have been used for interior scenes. In the diagram you can see a balcony call the Tarras, known in our century as terrace, provided another acting area. This Tarras (terrace) may have been flanked by window-stages at which actors could also appear. The platform was covered which a large canopy which was supported by stage posts. Above the third level you would find the huts; this is where sounds effects such as thunder were produced. The Huts also housed a ‘pulley system’ for lowering apparitions or objects supposed to appear in mid-air. This diagram to the left is the original Globe Theatre layout. This was the theatre William Shakespeare was most known to and like many other theatres and entertainment venues; it was situated on the south side of the Thames River, slightly removed, on the outskirts of the city. This theatre was open to anyone who could scrap together a penny. However, those who could afford the singular (common public), used it as a gathering space and would rarely focus on the events taking place on the stage. Richer patrons also attended the theatre for an extra few pennies (two or three pennies) and received better seating and a view of the stage; they also used the theatre as a gathering space. “Two pennies granted a covered, elevated seat, and three purchased a cushioned seat in the galleries where spectators would be socially visible.”

‘As You Like It’ is one of many comedies written by William Shakespeare. By the time Shakespeare wrote it in 1599, he already had seven other comedies under his belt, including A Love's Labour's Lost (1594) and Midsummer Night's Dream (1595). It is believed that As You Like It could have been amongst one of the first Shakespeare play’s to be performed at the globe theatre in 1599; also in this year other plays were performed at the globe theatre such as, Henry V and Julius Caesar.

As you like it is about, the daughter of banished duke Ferdinand, Rosalind falls in love with Orlando, who is the disinherited son of duke’s friends. When Rosalind herself in banished from the court to the Forest of Arden by her usurping uncle, Duke Frederick; Rosalind, her cousin Celia and Touchstone (the Jester) make the vital decision of leaving the court together and she transforms herself into the appearance of a boy and will be known under the name of Ganymede. They travel together on the search through the Forest of Arden of which is where her father and his friends live in exile from the court. During this play, mixes of themes are discovered involving life and love, the natural world, death and many more. By the end of this play, families are reunited and new friends have been discovered. Ganymede also returns to being female (Rosalind) when she then marries Orlando when also many other marriages take place in the last scene; involving marriages between Oliver and Celia, Silvius and Phebe, Touchstone and Audrey. Oliver becomes and gentler, kinder young man which therefore leads to the Duke changing his ways and turns to religion (another theme). The final outcome leads to the exiled duke, father of Rosalind, taking the throne and ruling once again!

From this plot summary, you can tell that the play doesn’t have much of a driving plot to it. Well, that’s the whole point! Shakespeare created this play in which gives great pleasure to the audience because it just what the title says, ‘As You Like It’. Tis usual information found on the internet, summarises what Shakespeare wanted for this play:

“In fact, finding your own meaning is the whole point of As You Like It, a play that debates a giant laundry list of philosophical questions but never comes down on one side or the other:

• ·      What's the meaning of love?
• ·      Is the world really "like a stage"?
•  ·    Is life better in the country or the court?
• ·     Are gender roles fixed or fluid?
• ·     What is it that drives sexual attraction?

Because most of the characters spend their time running around the forest offering multiple (and incompatible) answers to said questions, As You Like It presents several points of view, but never actually takes any side.”

There are many themes in As You Like It, one of the many themes entwined in this play is city life versus country life. This theme has a lot to do with the Pastoral genre that was very popular around the time of William Shakespeare’s life and which this play belongs to that literary tradition. Typically, a pastoral story involves exiles from urban or court life who flees to the refuge of the countryside, where they often disguise themselves as shepherds in order to converse with other shepherds on a range of established topics, from the relative merits of life at court versus life in the country to the relationship between nature and art. The pastoral genre’s most fundamental concern was comparing the worth of the natural world, represented by relatively untouched countryside, to the world built by humans, which contains the joys of art and the city as well as the injustices of rigid social hierarchies. Linking the pastoral genre back to the theme in As You Like It, this theme, of city life versus country life, thrives on Pastoral.

In conclusion, there is so much meaning and context to this play through its themes, meanings and overall plot!