Notes on the NSU Theatre presentation of

Film: As You Like It (1936)

Orlando winds up in the company of Duke Senior's men, pining for his lost Rosalind. Rosalind, meanwhile, purchases a flock of sheep and a pasture, and sets out to lead a pastoral life. Before long, however, Orlando's habit of carving Rosalind's name in the trees and leaving love poems to her about the forest tip her off to Orlando's presence and whereabouts. Still disguised as Ganymede, Rosalind promises to cure Orlando's heartache by letting him pour his feelings out to Ganymede as if "he" were Rosalind. Also as Ganymede, Rosalind attempts a match between Silvius and Phebe that goes awry; Phebe falls for Rosalind's Ganymede alter ego. Touchstone also courts a country girl named Audrey, adding to the multiple romances.

The resolution begins when Oliver enters the camp. Orlando has saved him from an attack by a lion, and the two brothers have reconciled. Upon meeting Celia, Oliver falls in love; Duke Senior promises to join them in wedlock the next day. Rosalind makes Phoebe promise to marry Silvius if she can't have Ganymede, then tells Orlando that Rosalind will marry him that day as well. When all have gathered for the wedding, Rosalind reveals herself as the erstwhile Ganymede. She and Orlando are happily reunited, and Phebe agrees to marry Silvius. As a final addition, Touchstone will also marry Audrey. In a final resolution, Orlando and Oliver's brother Jaques de Boy enters the scene. He brings news that Duke Frederick, upon meeting a holy man, has repented his ways, opted for a monastic life, and restored Duke Senior's throne.

This production is produced in association with the Aberdeen Area Arts Council. The cast for NSU's production of As You Like It is as follows: Angela Nguyen will portray Rosalind, Adam Karal Sahli is cast as Orlando, and Andre Cobbs and Ju-Han Lee are cast as his brothers Oliver De Boys and Jaques De Boys. Eugene Cho will play Celia, while Mark Anderson will play her father, Duke Frederick (as well as play Duke Senior). Rory K. Behrens will be Touchstone the court jester, Tony L. Kollman as Jaques the melancholy courtier, and Matthew Sides as Silvius, Steve Warzeha as Charles the Wrestler (and William) and Elias Rostad as Amiens. Sara Pillatzki-Warzeha plays Phebe, Amber Noble portrays Audrey and Danbee Choi will play Lords to Frederick and Duke Senior. Rounding out the cast are Dr. Raouf Zaidan and Tannen Tople as Grandfather and Grandson- who are the narrators for this unique adaptation.

Guest Director, Doug Finlayson, directs the play and the scenic and lighting design will be by NSU Technical Director, Larry Wild. Janice Ostrander will create the period costumes. Dr. William Wieland composes original music for this production. The entire production will be stage managed by Samantha Banner (assisted by Erin Guetter) while Stephanie Finn will serve as assistant director.

As You Like It will be presented for four performances, beginning April 19th through the 22nd, at 7:30 pm nightly on the stage of the Johnson Fine Arts Center on the campus of NSU. Seats are not reserved and tickets are $8.00, $7.00 for students, seniors and AAAC Members and free to all NSU students with their ID card. Tickets increase $2.00 at the door. There are special rates available for groups of 10 or more. Tickets will be available in the NSU bookstore beginning on Monday, April 10th, or by mail. Call the NSU Bookstore at 626- 2655 or the NSU Department of Theatre at 626-2563 for additional information.

There will be a special student matinee on Friday, April 21st at 10 a.m. If your school group is interested in attending this matinee, contact Stacy Braun at the Aberdeen Area Arts Council at 605-226-1557 for information and to make reservations.

Details about William Shakespeare's life are sketchy, mostly mere surmise based upon court or clerical records. His parents, John and Mary (Arden), were married about 1557; she was of the landed gentry, he a yeoman-a glover and commodities merchant. By 1568, John had risen through the ranks of town government and held the position of high bailiff, similar to mayor. William, the eldest son, was born in 1564, probably on April 23, several days before his baptism on April 26, 1564. That Shakespeare also died on April 23, 52 years later, may have resulted in the adoption of this birth date.

William no doubt attended the local grammar school in Stratford where his parents lived, and would have studied primarily Latin rhetoric, logic, and literature. At age 18 (1582), William married Anne Hathaway, a local farmer's daughter eight years his senior. Their first daughter (Susanna) was born six months later (1583), and twins Judith and Hamnet were born in 1585.

Shakespeare's life can be divided into three periods: the first 20 years in Stratford, which include his schooling, early marriage, and fatherhood; the next 25 years as an actor and playwright in London; and the last five in retirement back in Stratford where he enjoyed themoderate wealth gained from his theatrical successes. The years linking the first two periods are marked by a lack of information about Shakespeare, and are often referred to as the "dark years"; the transition from active work into retirement was gradual and cannot be precisely dated.

John Shakespeare had suffered financial reverses from William's teen years until well into the height of the playwright's popularity and success. In 1596, John Shakespeare was granted a coat of arms, almost certainly purchased by William, who the next year bought a sizable house in Stratford. By the time of his death, William had substantial properties, both professional and personal, which he bestowed on his theatrical associates and his family (primarily his daughter Susanna, having rewritten his will one month before his death to protect his assets from Judith's new husband, Thomas Quiney, who ran afoul of church doctrine and public esteem before and after the marriage).

Shakespeare probably left school at 15, which was the norm, and took some sort of job, especially since this was the period of his father's financial difficulty. Numerous references in his plays suggest that William may have in fact worked for his father, thereby gaining specialized knowledge.

At some point during the "dark years," Shakespeare began his career with a London theatrical company - perhaps in 1589 - for he was already an actor and playwright of some note in 1592. Shakespeare apparently wrote and acted for Pembroke's Men, as well as numerous others, in particular Strange's Men, which later became the Chamberlain's Men, with whom he remained for the rest of his career.

Globe Theatre (1599)

When, in 1592, the Plague closed the theatres for about two years, Shakespeare turned to writing book-length narrative poetry. Most notable were Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, both of which were dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, whom scholars accept as Shakespeare's friend and benefactor despite a lack of documentation. During this same period, Shakespeare was writing his sonnets, which are more likely signs of the time's fashion rather than actual love poems detailing any particular relationship. He returned to play writing when theatres reopened in 1594, and published no more poetry. His sonnets were published without his consent in 1609, shortly before his retirement.

Amid all of his success, Shakespeare suffered the loss of his only son, Hamnet, who died in 1596 at the age of 11. But Shakespeare's career continued unabated, and in London in 1599, he became one of the partners in the new Globe Theatre, built by the Chamberlain's Men. This group was a remarkable assemblage of "excellent actors who were also business partners and close personal friends . . . [including] Richard Burbage . . . [who] all worked together as equals . . . ".

When Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 and was succeeded by her cousin King James of Scotland, the Chamberlain's Men was renamed the King's Men, and Shakespeare's productivity and popularity continued uninterrupted. He invested in London real estate and, one year away from retirement, purchased a second theatre, the Blackfriars Gatehouse, in partnership with his fellow actors. His final play was Henry VIII, two years before his death in 1616.

First Folio (1623)

Incredibly, most of Shakespeare's plays had never been published in anything except pamphlet form, and were simply extant as acting scripts stored at the Globe. Only the efforts of two of Shakespeare's company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, preserved his 36 plays (minus Pericles, the thirty-seventh) in the First Folio. Heminges and Condell published the plays, they said, "only to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive as was our Shakespeare". Theater scripts were not regarded as literary works of art, but only the basis for the performance. Plays were a popular form of entertainment for all layers of society in Shakespeare's time, which perhaps explains why Hamlet feels compelled to instruct the traveling Players on the fine points of acting, urging them not "to split the ears of the groundlings," nor "speak no more than is set down for them."

Present copies of Shakespeare's plays have, in some cases, been reconstructed in part from scripts written down by various members of an acting company who performed particular roles. Shakespeare's plays, like those of many of the actors who also were playwrights, belonged to the acting company. The performance, rather than the script, was what concerned the author, for that was how his play would become popular-and how the company, in which many actors were shareholders, would make money.

William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, and was buried two days later in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church where he had been baptized exactly 52 years earlier.

Forest of Arden

As You Like It, first staged in 1599, was one of the first plays to be performed in the newly built Globe Theatre, and there are many references to the world of the theatre in the play. Like most of Shakespeare's plays, neither the story nor the genre are original. The characters allude to Robin Hood and his merry men, a well-known legend in Shakespeare's time. Pastoral literature was very popular in the two decades before Shakespeare wrote the play, and the play is loosely based on Rosalynde, or Euphues' Golden Legacie (1590), a prose tale by Thomas Lodge. Lodge invited gentlemen to read his story and told them, "if you like it, so." The phrase may have given Shakespeare the idea for the play's title. But Shakespeare infused the play with many original characters. He set it in the Forest of Arden, which may have been named after the forest he was familiar with and which belonged to the Ardens, his mother's family. The forest may also refer to the forest of Ardennes in France, for Shakespeare does poke fun at the French in this play. It should be noted that the forest is not like one of our Canadian preserves, but rather a wooded rural area that is a mixture of woodland, tiny hamlets, and small farms.

The first American performance in New York City, which featured Mrs. Kenna, opened at the John Street Theatre in July 1786. It has been revived on Broadway 21 times with the last revival opening at the Belasco in November 1986.

As You Like It CBC Video (1983)

Available Scripts: As You Like It by William Shakespeare. Folger Shakespeare Library Edition, 2004. (Text with notes) Dover Thrift Edition, 1998. (Text only) SparkNotes' No Fear Shakespeare 2004. (Includes a line-by-line translation of the Shakespearn text into standard American English) MIT's e-text edition. (Text only) Films and Video As You LIke It (Film: 1936) Staring Lawrence Olivier and Elisabeth Bergner, Directed by Paul Czinner, DVD released by Alpoha Video, 2004. As You LIke It (CBC Video: 1982) Staring Andrew Gillies and Roberta Maxwell. Directed for the stage (Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Stratford, ON) by John Hirsch. DVD released by Madacy Studios, 1998 . (Note: The above titles and formats are available through Amazon.com and other on-line retailers)