As You Like It

Directors talk about As You Like It
As You Like It is a play full of contrasts. It’s about liberty and banishment, love and hate, cruelty and kindness. Depending on your view point it’s a play about romance, politics, gender, personal identity, love.

What is certain is that As You Like It is an enduringly popular, often performed play. Here directors give their opinions on As You Like It.

What's the play about?
"To me, As You Like It seems written purely to please. It is an entertainment, a youthful enchantment, a play of the physical world full of all the external physical things that give pleasure in the theatre: fights, songs, dances, movement, adventure, disguises, high spirits."
Peter Brook, Director

What kind of play is it?
"It is such a one-off play, a free play, a motley play, loosely structured, Chekhovian. The Forest of Arden seems like the most enchanting place to be."
Steven Pimlott, RSC Associate Director

How does a director get into the play?
"As You Like It is a play you follow rather than lead: a conceptual approach would be very misleading because it would miss out so many aspects. At Shakespeare’s Globe, in the open air and with no scenery, the words themselves created the pictures. Here, in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, a big proscenium theatre, you have to see a play as well as hear it. You have to make choices early on about the nature of the forest of Arden: what is it like? Where is it? What sort of place is it? What time of year? What’s the weather like? Is it the forest of Arden, as in Shakespeare’s mother’s name, or is it the Forest of Ardennes in France, an exotic place, full of chivalry and romance?"
Steven Pimlott, Director, As You Like It, RSC 1996

What happens in rehearsal?
"The rehearsal process can be like a scientific experiment. As a director you start off with an hypothesis – how you think the play works – but rehearsals can be a mechanism for testing out that hypothesis: modifying it, altering it, proving its validity or otherwise. The rehearsals offer me a continual opportunity to learn and discover about the play. I see the director as being the leader of a collaborative, creative process. My primary aim in that process is to serve the playwright as well as I can."
David Thacker, Director, As You Like It, RSC 1992

"I just watch and listen and watch. As soon as it goes awry, I come in and say so. If it is fine, just let it grow and see where it goes."
Gregory Thompson, Director, As You Like It, RSC 2003

Directors in rehearsal
Have you ever wondered what happens in rehearsals? Here directors and actors talk about working on As You Like It.

Gregory Thompson (director of the current production at the Swan Theatre) says a director needs to:

cast the right people who will come on the journey with you

set up the conditions so that the company can do their best work

watch the play a lot and listen very carefully as the actors do the work

shape the action

In rehearsals for the 2003 production of As You Like It, the company drew a map of the forest, looked at the descriptions of the forest, looked at the word ‘if’ which occurs 138 times in the play (it seems to be a key word in many sections of the play) and looked at what might sustain the lords in the forest and decided it might be the Bible.

Preparation in previous productions
David Thacker directed As You Like It at the RSC in 1992:
"As a director you start off with an hypothesis - how you think the play works - but rehearsals can be a mechanism for testing out that hypothesis, modifying it, altering it, proving its validity or otherwise. The rehearsals offer me a continual opportunity to lean and discover about the play."

Dominic Cooke was Assistant Director to David Thacker in 1992:

"On the first day of rehearsals David Thacker said that he wanted to imagine that William Shakespeare was in the room. The idea was that the production should be as true to the play as possible, serve the playwright as well as possible."

During rehearsals, the company of the 1992 production spent two weeks paraphrasing Shakespeare’s language. They put Shakespeare’s language into their own words, finding a contemporary way of expressing the ideas and emotions of the play.

They ‘hot-seated’ the non-speaking characters in the court scene - asking them what their names were, how old they were, where they came from, why there were in the court. The actors played many different roles but never their own for the first two weeks. In this way the company got to know the whole play from a variety of characters’ viewpoints and avoided seeing it from the ‘blinkered’ perspective of just one character. When someone else plays ‘your’ role they often uncover aspects of your character you might never otherwise have found.

Actors from the 1992 production
Michael Siberry, who played Jaques says:

"We rehearsed things bit by bit, moment by moment, step by step. What comes out of it has sort of evolved. We didn’t make up our minds in advance about how things were going to be done."

Andrew Jarvis, who played Duke Frederick says:

"With David Thacker it’s very exciting because you never know what he’s going to do next."

Susan-Jane Tanner, who played Audrey:

"David read to us from Stanislavski’s book on directing. Stanislavski believes he has the right to say to an actor, ‘I don’t believe you’ and David was running his rehearsals on those lines. He wanted it to be totally believable - above all else to come from truth, which is everybody’s desire in all acting to a certain extent, but particularly in this production."

And a final word from Andew Jarvis:

"What David does is to make you incredibly honest as an actor. He puts you on the spot and he won't let you go until he's got what he thinks is an honest reponse. He'll just say 'No, I don't believe that - say that again, I didn't understand that'. But he'll do all sorts of excersises to make you see what those lines mean, what they mean for you, and to try and get that emotion."

Interpreting a stage direction: Enter Rosalind and Celia
We are often asked to think about stage directions and the practical demands of the text. Unlike modern playwrights, Shakespeare gave very few directives.

Carol Rutter describes how the simple instruction at Act 1 Scene ii 'Enter ROSALIND and CELIA' was interpreted at the RSC in 1985 in a production directed by Adrian Noble:

"The opening scene was staged like a front-of-cloth scene. It was set against a billowing grey curtain that looked like a storm cloud. A blast of wind gusted it away, revealing a ‘memory place’: an attic perhaps, or a long-redundant nursery.

Rosalind entered running, then stopped, as if hit by a wave of pain. Ludicrously out of place in an evening gown, she wandered among the packing crates and suitcases. She tugged on a dust sheet. It fell away. Underneath was a mirror. Slowly, she wound herself in the cloth, watching her reflection in the mirror. Behind her a grandfather clock stood silent in the corner.

Then Celia entered. She was clutching a champagne bottle by the scruff of its neck, stalking her cousin. Having run her to ground, she finally spoke the first words of the scene, growling them: ‘I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.’"

Juliet Stevenson, who played Rosalind talks about the implications of their staging decisions:

"We established the idea that the play starts not at the beginning of something, but with Rosalind nearing the end of her endurance. It’s as if she’d been sitting at some state banquet, and it came time for the brandy and speeches, and somebody stood up to toast 'the duke' and Rosalind, suddenly no longer able to bear the usurpation and the loss, had needed to get out. So she ran away to that attic, to touch her father’s things. That image showed a Rosalind rooted to the past, unable to move because her only relationship is with the past.

It was a good idea to set that scene in a place where Rosalind and Celia were free to talk to each other, where they could escape from the extremely oppressive male world of the Court.

But the place we had invented encouraged us to be too pensive; that languid opening sequence - opening lids, looking at old pictures - was in danger of depriving the scene of the energy Shakespeare built into it. The ‘attic-ness’ of it dominated the rhythm of the first part of the scene. The scene isn’t just about depression or melancholia. It’s also about volatility, feverishness, swiftness of thought and of mood change.

The dynamic energy starts with Celia’s imperative: ‘Be merry!’ and Rosalind bursts back with , ‘I show more mirth than I am mistress of.’

I think Shakespeare intended the actors to come on together, in the middle of an exchange. If you’ve been wandering around a set picking up clothes out of trunks and acting melancholy, you can’t then play a scene with the same dynamic as if you’d walked on together arguing.

And that’s what Shakespeare’s written. We learned after we’d been playing it for a few months that you are better off if you observe the clues he gives you."

Juliet Stevenson on Rosalind in Clamourous Voices - Shakespeare's Women Today by Carol Rutter with Sinead Cusack, Paola Dionisotti, Fiona Shaw, Juliet Stevenson and Harriet Walter, edited by Faith Evans, The Woman's Press Ltd, 1988.

further reading
Squeaking Cleopatras, The Elizabethan Boy Player by Joy Leslie Gibson, Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000
Women in Shakespeare by Judith Cook, George G. Harrap & Co Ltd, 1980
Clamorous Voices, Shakespeare’s Women Today by Carol Rutter with Sinead Cusack, Paola Dionisotti, Fiona Shaw, Juliet Stevenson and Harriet Walter edited by Faith Evans, The Woman’s Press Ltd, 1988


			As You Like It is a play full of contrasts. It’s about liberty and banishment, love and hate, cruelty and kindness. Depending on your view point it’s a play about romance, politics, gender, personal identity, love. What is certain is that As You Like It is an enduringly popular, often performed play. Here directors give their opinions on As You Like It. "To me, As You Like It seems written purely to please. It is an entertainment, a youthful enchantment, a play of the physical world full of all the external physical things that give pleasure in the theatre: fights, songs, dances, movement, adventure, disguises, high spirits." Peter Brook, Director "It is such a one-off play, a free play, a motley play, loosely structured, Chekhovian. The Forest of Arden seems like the most enchanting place to be." Steven Pimlott, RSC Associate Director "As You Like It is a play you follow rather than lead: a conceptual approach would be very misleading because it would miss out so many aspects. At Shakespeare’s Globe, in the open air and with no scenery, the words themselves created the pictures. Here, in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, a big proscenium theatre, you have to see a play as well as hear it. You have to make choices early on about the nature of the forest of Arden: what is it like? Where is it? What sort of place is it? What time of year? What’s the weather like? Is it the forest of Arden, as in Shakespeare’s mother’s name, or is it the Forest of Ardennes in France, an exotic place, full of chivalry and romance?" Steven Pimlott, Director, As You Like It, RSC 1996 "The rehearsal process can be like a scientific experiment. As a director you start off with an hypothesis – how you think the play works – but rehearsals can be a mechanism for testing out that hypothesis: modifying it, altering it, proving its validity or otherwise. The rehearsals offer me a continual opportunity to learn and discover about the play. I see the director as being the leader of a collaborative, creative process. My primary aim in that process is to serve the playwright as well as I can." David Thacker, Director, As You Like It, RSC 1992 "I just watch and listen and watch. As soon as it goes awry, I come in and say so. If it is fine, just let it grow and see where it goes." Gregory Thompson, Director, As You Like It, RSC 2003 Have you ever wondered what happens in rehearsals? Here directors and actors talk about working on As You Like It. Gregory Thompson (director of the current production at the Swan Theatre) says a director needs to: cast the right people who will come on the journey with you set up the conditions so that the company can do their best work watch the play a lot and listen very carefully as the actors do the work shape the action In rehearsals for the 2003 production of As You Like It, the company drew a map of the forest, looked at the descriptions of the forest, looked at the word ‘if’ which occurs 138 times in the play (it seems to be a key word in many sections of the play) and looked at what might sustain the lords in the forest and decided it might be the Bible. David Thacker directed As You Like It at the RSC in 1992: "As a director you start off with an hypothesis - how you think the play works - but rehearsals can be a mechanism for testing out that hypothesis, modifying it, altering it, proving its validity or otherwise. The rehearsals offer me a continual opportunity to lean and discover about the play." Dominic Cooke was Assistant Director to David Thacker in 1992: "On the first day of rehearsals David Thacker said that he wanted to imagine that William Shakespeare was in the room. The idea was that the production should be as true to the play as possible, serve the playwright as well as possible." During rehearsals, the company of the 1992 production spent two weeks paraphrasing Shakespeare’s language. They put Shakespeare’s language into their own words, finding a contemporary way of expressing the ideas and emotions of the play. They ‘hot-seated’ the non-speaking characters in the court scene - asking them what their names were, how old they were, where they came from, why there were in the court. The actors played many different roles but never their own for the first two weeks. In this way the company got to know the whole play from a variety of characters’ viewpoints and avoided seeing it from the ‘blinkered’ perspective of just one character. When someone else plays ‘your’ role they often uncover aspects of your character you might never otherwise have found. Michael Siberry, who played Jaques says: "We rehearsed things bit by bit, moment by moment, step by step. What comes out of it has sort of evolved. We didn’t make up our minds in advance about how things were going to be done." Andrew Jarvis, who played Duke Frederick says: "With David Thacker it’s very exciting because you never know what he’s going to do next." Susan-Jane Tanner, who played Audrey: "David read to us from Stanislavski’s book on directing. Stanislavski believes he has the right to say to an actor, ‘I don’t believe you’ and David was running his rehearsals on those lines. He wanted it to be totally believable - above all else to come from truth, which is everybody’s desire in all acting to a certain extent, but particularly in this production." And a final word from Andew Jarvis: "What David does is to make you incredibly honest as an actor. He puts you on the spot and he won't let you go until he's got what he thinks is an honest reponse. He'll just say 'No, I don't believe that - say that again, I didn't understand that'. But he'll do all sorts of excersises to make you see what those lines mean, what they mean for you, and to try and get that emotion." We are often asked to think about stage directions and the practical demands of the text. Unlike modern playwrights, Shakespeare gave very few directives. Carol Rutter describes how the simple instruction at Act 1 Scene ii 'Enter ROSALIND and CELIA' was interpreted at the RSC in 1985 in a production directed by Adrian Noble: "The opening scene was staged like a front-of-cloth scene. It was set against a billowing grey curtain that looked like a storm cloud. A blast of wind gusted it away, revealing a ‘memory place’: an attic perhaps, or a long-redundant nursery. Rosalind entered running, then stopped, as if hit by a wave of pain. Ludicrously out of place in an evening gown, she wandered among the packing crates and suitcases. She tugged on a dust sheet. It fell away. Underneath was a mirror. Slowly, she wound herself in the cloth, watching her reflection in the mirror. Behind her a grandfather clock stood silent in the corner. Then Celia entered. She was clutching a champagne bottle by the scruff of its neck, stalking her cousin. Having run her to ground, she finally spoke the first words of the scene, growling them: ‘I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.’" Juliet Stevenson, who played Rosalind talks about the implications of their staging decisions: "We established the idea that the play starts not at the beginning of something, but with Rosalind nearing the end of her endurance. It’s as if she’d been sitting at some state banquet, and it came time for the brandy and speeches, and somebody stood up to toast 'the duke' and Rosalind, suddenly no longer able to bear the usurpation and the loss, had needed to get out. So she ran away to that attic, to touch her father’s things. That image showed a Rosalind rooted to the past, unable to move because her only relationship is with the past. It was a good idea to set that scene in a place where Rosalind and Celia were free to talk to each other, where they could escape from the extremely oppressive male world of the Court. But the place we had invented encouraged us to be too pensive; that languid opening sequence - opening lids, looking at old pictures - was in danger of depriving the scene of the energy Shakespeare built into it. The ‘attic-ness’ of it dominated the rhythm of the first part of the scene. The scene isn’t just about depression or melancholia. It’s also about volatility, feverishness, swiftness of thought and of mood change. The dynamic energy starts with Celia’s imperative: ‘Be merry!’ and Rosalind bursts back with , ‘I show more mirth than I am mistress of.’ I think Shakespeare intended the actors to come on together, in the middle of an exchange. If you’ve been wandering around a set picking up clothes out of trunks and acting melancholy, you can’t then play a scene with the same dynamic as if you’d walked on together arguing. And that’s what Shakespeare’s written. We learned after we’d been playing it for a few months that you are better off if you observe the clues he gives you." Juliet Stevenson on Rosalind in Clamourous Voices - Shakespeare's Women Today by Carol Rutter with Sinead Cusack, Paola Dionisotti, Fiona Shaw, Juliet Stevenson and Harriet Walter, edited by Faith Evans, The Woman's Press Ltd, 1988. Squeaking Cleopatras, The Elizabethan Boy Player by Joy Leslie Gibson, Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000 Women in Shakespeare by Judith Cook, George G. Harrap & Co Ltd, 1980 Clamorous Voices, Shakespeare’s Women Today by Carol Rutter with Sinead Cusack, Paola Dionisotti, Fiona Shaw, Juliet Stevenson and Harriet Walter edited by Faith Evans, The Woman’s Press Ltd, 1988