As You Like It certainly polarises opinion. It failed to please Nobel Prize-winning playwright George Bernard Shaw though. The curmudgeonly Irish nonagenarian considered As You Like It to be nothing more than “a cheap crowd-pleaser” and that this was where “sententious William first began to openly exploit the fondness of the British public for sham moralizing and stage ‘philosophy’”.

It was Shaw’s opinion that even Shakespeare was telling us that his play was a trifle and that the title should be read As YOU Like It but G Blakemore Evans inThe Riverside Shakespeare[1] convincingly suggests it’s more serious than that. Why otherwise would Jacques iconic speech regarding the world, actors and the phases of life contain the phrase ‘Totus mundus agit histrionem’ (all the Globe’s a stage) which would have been inspired by the motto of the Globe Theatre itself which opened in 1599 and was, at that time, Shakespeare’s home base.

Shaw, of course, is anathema to feminists. Margaret Mackworth, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda applauded his humanising of women and the ‘causes’ he espoused such as prostitution in Mrs Warren’s Profession and the emancipation of Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion, while Germaine Greer and others consider him to be, as Greer wrote in her 2011 Guardian blog entitled Mrs Warren’s Profession as “a wrong-headed trifle that goes clunk, clunk, clunk … less irreverent than irrelevant. By my computation,” she says, “feminists have had about as much time for Shaw as he had for them, which strikes me as fair enough.”

I’m guessing from this that Second Wave feminists might have dissimilar views about As You Like It to those held by Shaw but, then again, I may be wrong. Second Wave feminists never cease to amaze, after all.

The great Russian novelist, Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (better known as Leo), sat quietly in Shaw’s red corner however. He thought Shakespeare’s characters to be immoral and felt that Touchstone’s endless clowning was totally tedious.

On the other hand, in the blue corner, Harold Bloom, the exemplary American literary critic and Yale professor, credits Rosalind with “being the first real lover in all of modern literature.” He suggests that she is “the first to make fun of love and also the first to let herself be fully embraced by all its frivolity and pure joy.” Bloom continues, “Rosalind is unique in Western drama, because it is so difficult to achieve a perspective upon her that she herself does not anticipate and share.” She certainly knows what she wants and how to get it, “especially when it comes to matters of the heart.”

English academic and critic Anne Barton, wife and literary partner of Royal Shakespeare Company co-founder John Barton, goes even further than Bloom by insisting that “Rosalind is as critically important in As You Like It,andas central and dominating a character in her fashion, as Hamlet is in his own, very different play.”

I sit firmly in the camp of Bloom and Barton and unashamedly wear my heart on my romantic sleeve. It’s a least a decade since I saw a staged production of a Shaw classic and there are more than enough reasons for that too. Greer agrees in her “clunk, clunk, clunk” blog where she insists that “he is barely present today, even in the theatre.”

In the spirit of ‘everyone gets to speak’ even the Reduced Shakespeare Company has an opinion. They condensed As You Like It into one tweet which read“Desperate Housewives in Forest of Arden. Moral: U can always get a guy by pretending to be a boy.” Well, faux RSC, quirky though that is, there’s a lot more to As You Like It than that.

As You Like It is defined as a ‘pastoral comedy’ and is believed to have been written somewhere between 1598 and 1599 and first published in the First Folio of 1623.* The play is seemingly set in a duchy in France but, while referred to as the Forest of Arden – or possibly Ardennes – it may well have been Arden, Warwickshire, an area close to Shakespeare’s home town and from which Shakespeare’s mother’s family derived Arden, their family name.

Duke Frederick has usurped the dukedom, booted his older brother, Duke Senior, out and banished him and his supporters to the forest. Rosalind, daughter of the banished duke, is allowed to stay at court to keep Frederick’s only daughter Celia, her bosom-buddy, company.

Orlando is the youngest son of the late Sir Rowland de Boys, a supporter in his lifetime of the old duke. He’s receiving a horrid time from his older sibling, played in this production by a woman thus transforming from Oliver to Olivia and limiting the play’s theme of injustice perpetrated brother to usurping brother but opening up a range of marvellous cross-gendered cast-mongering that ultimately provides infinite positive appeal. What happens next is the meat and drink of both Shakespeare’s great play and this absorbing production.

Entering the theatre we are required by a firm but pleasant usher to walk to our raked, proscenium seating across the set which allows us to both absorb what it will be like for the actors to be in the court of Duke Frederick and the forest of Arden as well as disorienting us and making us focus on the experience and leave the drudgery of this workaday world behind us in the dark of a chill, winter’s evening.

We are momentarily surrounded by a ragtag and bobtail of roughhewn, grey stone and a sense that, wherever we might be – court or forest – the whole place is overrun and somewhat neglected. In the centre of the stage there’s a woodblock with an axe, Excalibur-like, firmly embedded in it.

Many of Shakespeare’s plays, especially if you are in the privileged position of having seen multiple productions, begin with a first line that can be especially evocative. “As I remember, Adam” is one such line and hearing it delivered by this new Orlando tells me immediately that I am in the usurping Frederick’s court and that I am hearing the youngest son of Sir Roland de Boys bemoaning his fate to his old retainer Adam.

So you don’t believe the evocative power of first lines to shift us to new climes, new abodes and a new psychology? Try these then: “Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour / Draws on apace”, or “Two households, both alike in dignity, / In fair Verona, where we lay our scene”, or “Who’s there? | Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself”, or even “When shall we three meet again / In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” or perhaps, if you remain unconvinced, “Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York”, or, a penultimate example, ‘O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend / The brightest heaven of invention’ and, finally, “If music be the food of love, play on; / Give me excess of it”.

I rest my case, but back to Orlando (Conil Tod) and his remembering.

We learn, as is so often the case with Shakespeare, so much of what is to come in these early exchanges. We discover, for example, who these two characters are, but much, much more than that. We learn that Duke Senior has been banished to the Forest of Arden with many of his supporters following a coup by his younger brother Frederick. This is useful information because it sets in train the subplot surrounding older and younger siblings.

A brief digression to make a point: it’s been a great year for Shakespeare in Auckland with already more than a dozen productions of the bard’s work and it’s only half way through June. The Pop-up Globe was fabulous and must take most of the credit. I’ve had the privilege of seeing eight of them, reviewing seven and being in one so I feel able to say that our actors and directors capacity to articulate a concept, make sense of the language, to “suit the action to the word, the word to the action” and to “o’erstep not the modesty of nature” is seriously improved.

UNITEC has paired As You Like It with The Winter’s Tale – in my view genius programming for both actors and audience – and I’ve heard every word, understood every intention, been wooed by every emotion and been hugely impressed by both commitment and capacity. It speaks a lot for the future of our art, but it says a lot for now, as well.

Adam (Forrest Denize) is a treacherously difficult role at the best of times and in the hands of an actor barely out of their teens it’s a challenge indeed. In this case the problem is adequately solved by creating the stereotypes of age – bowed legs, stooped shoulders – through a sense of physical deterioration and vocal collapse that we readily accept.

Adam’s function is critical to our understanding of the importance of both courage and compassion in the play, as much through the attitudes and actions of those around him as from his own, and this is managed particularly well on his exhausted arrival in the forest.

A high camp Monsieur Le Beau (a cross-gendered Grace Cullen) tells us with much excitement that there is “much excitement” about to ensue because Charles the Wrestler (Kyle Shields) has been challenged to “a fall” by Orlando himself, a much smaller man, and that this will be worth seeing. We already know this because Charles has informed Olivia (Lisa Swinbanks), in Act 1 Scene 1 and we’ve been eavesdropping so we know, that Orlando is about to get the crap kicked out of him by the bigger man on the orders of his older sibling. We don’t know why she hates him so much, but we find out later.

As we share Le Beau’s excitement we are introduced to both Rosalind (Carla Newton) and Celia (Melissa Cameron). Rosalind, the daughter of the banished Duke, has been permitted to stay at the court as a plaything and friend of the usurping Duke Frederick’s daughter because, as Charles tells us earlier, “never two ladies loved as they do.”

Following a fight won all too easily by the much smaller Orlando, we are witness to both Rosalind and Celia going gaga over the victor who, in his turn, has eyes only for Rosalind. In the tense scenes that follow, Duke Frederick (Dylan Underwood) confronts Rosalind and banishes her from the court ‘on pain of death’ should she fail to heed his instruction. Celia intercedes on her friend’s behalf and, when she fails to move her father, insists that she will follow Rosalind to the Forest of Arden to find Duke Senior, and the girls make plans as to how this will evolve.

Rosalind decides, happily, that she will disguise herself as a boy and call herself Ganymede after “Jove’s own page” and that Celia will physicalise her state as Aliena (or ‘stranger’ in Latin). And, having decided to go to the forest, they agree to convince Frederick’s “clownish fool” Touchstone to accompany them.

In 2016 we think that this is a pretty cool thing to do but for a 16^th century audience it’s much, much more than that. Rosalind isn’t a fool and she knows, as her 16^th century audience would, that rape and robbery are a real possibility for a young woman alone on the road. By making the decision to pose as a man she is immediately confronting a wide range of contemporary assumptions about women being submissive while also having a bit to say about men presenting a manly and martial outside, ‘As many other mannish cowards have / That do outface it with their semblances.”[2]

Shakespeare’s audiences would have understood that all of the female characters were being played by boys but we have no such convention so our understanding is limited and this affects our ability to appreciate the more sublime touches of Shakespeare’s gendered comedy.

So let’s be clear about this. Here is Rosalind, a female character played by a boy actor, talking about men faking it as ‘she’ makes the decision to disguise herself as a boy so that she can be safe on the road. She’s fallen in love with a boy (Orlando) while in girl mode as an actor and he (Orlando) has fallen in love with her (Rosalind), a boy actor cross-dressed. Now she will be Ganymede (a boy actor cross-dressed as a girl cross-dressed as a boy) and they will both go to the forest where Ganymede will offer to teach Orlando how to woo Rosalind.

As if this weren’t confusing enough, Phebe (a boy actor dressed as a girl) will also fall in love with Ganymede (a boy actor disguised as a girl disguised as a boy) and propose a love match with him/her before this whole gendered mess of pottage is beautifully – and happily – resolved by the end of the play. And what’s more, in Calum Gittins’ fun production, everyone is happy with the resolution – even Phebe.

The only quibble I would have with director Gittins’ excellent concept which ingeniously joins Celia and the scripturally cross-gendered Olivia in a same sex union at the end of the play – it explains a lot and makes perfect sense – is his programme note which says that “the ending of the piece indeed seems as if it was written very hastily, perhaps before our illustrious Bard made a quick escape to the pub.” I disagree, respectfully, of course, because there is nothing in either Shakespeare’s script nor in Gittins’ fine direction of the conclusion that bears witness to this. Quite the opposite, in fact, as he and his actors have unravelled the lunacy of the “Pray you, no more of this; ’tis like the howling of Irish wolves against the moon” scene with such clarity and panache when it is, in fact, Shakespeare at his most delightfully complex.

I’ve purposely not told you the plot beyond the departure of Ganymede, Aliena and Touchstone to the forest because this is when this production really comes to life and becomes a ‘must see’ effort. It’s not perfect – what Shakespeare ever is – but it’s fine work and each of the actors has at least one role in which they shine.

Early in the production I wished Conil Tod would listen to what the play says about Orlando and to focus on what Rosalind sees in him rather than what Olivia describes him as, but as the journey progresses and the forest – and Ganymede – take hold of him, he becomes the man we want him to be for Rosalind’s sake. As with Tod, Carla Newton’s Rosalind/Ganymede grows as the evening gains weight and by the time she meets Orlando in the forest she is in full flight. Hers is a Rosalind of which she can be most proud.

Melissa Cameron’s Celia is powerful yet enigmatic. Making her same-sex attracted might have complicated the relationship with Rosalind but her love for her friend never heads in that fraught direction. It does, however, mellow her jealousy of her friend in just the right measure. She’s a great sidekick but it’s a terrific performance in and of itself as well.

Where Forrest Denize’ Adam is as much a symbol of age as it is a reality, her Phebe is the opposite. She’s visceral, intuitive and fervent – and she wants Ganymede come hell or high water. Her ready acceptance of Silvius at the unwinding of the knot of the play makes such good sense of the power of the forest – and the ticking body clock of nature.

Dylan Underwood plays the challenging trifecta of Frederick, Silvius and Amiens. As the downtrodden but ultimately successful Silvius he both serves the play and creates a convincing underdog but it’s his Amiens that is most effective. Amiens is often lost among the stuff and nonsense of the play but Underwood has brought him to life, put flesh on his bones and made him the Will Scarlet or the Alan A Dale of Duke Senior’s merry band.

Tyler Brailey makes a brief appearance as the middle De Boys brother, Jaques (pron. Jay-ks), delivers perhaps the most important message of the evening, sings a bit of a song and doesn’t put a foot out of place.

Kyle Shields has some big roles, in more ways than one. He plays Duke Senior with suitable gravitas while as Charles the Wrestler he carries the story well and makes a suitably giant combatant for Orlando. As William he produces a goodly line in village idiocy, enough at least to allow Touchstone to make an ass of him and for us to feel sympathy, but it’s as the enigmatic Sir Oliver Martext that he excels. Martext is a character who seems to sit outside the play and can be merely a foil for Touchstone’s nastiness but Shields makes him real and integrates him into the production very well indeed.

Lisa Swinbanks has the unenviable task of turning older brother Oliver into older sister Olivia, stepping aside from all the older brother/younger brother stuff – and there’s plenty of that – falling in love with and marrying Celia, and, in essence, turning the play on its head, or knocking it on its arse: whichever you choose. She does it superbly. At every step she takes me with her and, despite my knowing the play well as a vehicle for almost heteronormativity, I fall under the spell of the concept and the actor very readily indeed. Melissa Cameron has to take credit for the credibility of this success too, as does everyone, because not one character presents this as an event out of the ordinary. It’s super stuff, all round. Swinbanks’ delivery of Olivia’s lion attack epiphany is marvellously credible, as is the warmth of her Corin, the shepherd; a charm that is so at odds with her chill performance of the Olivia of Act One.

Todd Waters’ Touchstone is an example of excellence throughout. His loyalty to the women, obsession with his own image and his unending commitment to foolery carries the production along at a gallop whenever he is on stage. He looks great, has a wonderful voice and intelligence to burn. To say I hate Touchstone the character is a compliment because he’s a nasty piece of work and in this he provides such a splendid foil for the veracity, certainty and cynicism of Grace Cullen’s solitary Jaques (pron. Jay-queez). I’m less sure whether the casting of Audrey as a puppet works but, in as much as it does, the manipulation of this character is a success.

Grace Cullen’s Jaques is equally splendid. She turns up and delivers whenever she is required and plays against the play in ways that really make it work. Without Jaques we’re left with a frothy slice of jollity not unlike a piece of ice cream cake. It tastes good but when you want more there’s simply nothing there. Jaques’ uncompromising commitment to her own reality is what allows us to see the darker side of this magical forest and Cullen at no time deviates from her commitment to it. When she decides to stay in the forest and have one last ‘deep and meaningful’ with Senior at his cave before he returns to his dukedom, she leaves us in no doubt that there’s a further act to this journey that we’ll just have to imagine for ourselves. Jaques brings a sombre gravitas to the play and all the characters are touched to some degree by it – and Shakespeare’s work, and our experience of it, is enriched immeasurably.

I’m always fascinated by just who Duke Frederick meets at the skirt of the forest who has such an impact on him. It changes the course of the play and every life presented in it. Is it Jaques? Possibly. Or is it someone else. This production omits, as many do, Act IV Scene 2 which presents a confrontation between Jaques, a few foresters and some of Duke Senior’s men who are carrying the body of a slain deer. Jaques insists that the forester sing a song appropriate to the occasion and what follows in this seemingly brief scene is a link to the deep forest mythology of the ‘hooded’ or ‘green man.’ If this path is followed then a deeper and somewhat more sinister meaning is given to the play and Shakespeare’s audiences would have been far more aware of this than we are today. Perhaps, just perhaps, this is who Frederick met and who sent him scurrying off to live out his life in prayer and meditation in a cave.

I appreciate the intelligent cross-gendering in this production. While it may to some extent have been imposed on the director this in no way diminishes the success of the outcome and everyone involved should take a curtsy. It’s smart direction that seems slight until it’s all put together. Then we realise just how profound it is. Making any Shakespeare is a treacherous journey and these young actors in the capable hands of director Gittins have made a great fist of it.

A word to conclude about the behind-the-scenes creatives. The lighting (Arianna Shipman) is really impressive and there are moments when characters are visible at the extremities of the set to exactly the degree they need to be. My only production quibble would be the overuse of black outs as scene transitions when they disrupt Shakespeare’s ongoing narrative. Perhaps better to find ways that scenes can intersect than to take us to black too often.

Costumes (Rose Morgan, Ana Fernandez) are uniformly good and especially so once we hit the Forest of Arden.

As noted above, not only have the third year UNITEC students staged As You Like It but The Winter’s Tale as well. Anyone who has taken on one Shakespeare production knows just what a journey it is and full credit is due to this small but resilient band that they manage to produce such good quality experiences for the students, and for us in the audience, year in and year out. This is, I’ve no doubt, the result of engaging skilled and excellent directors like Paul and Calum Gittins, father and son, but also credit to the small teaching team who are providing these young actors with such impressive skill sets.

I look forward each year to the UNITEC Performing and Screen Arts Programme midyear Shakespeare works and Calum Gittins 2016 production of As You Like It does not disappoint in any way at all.

Enjoy it. I certainly did.
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*No copy of it in Quarto exists. The play was, however, entered into the Register of the Stationer’s Company on 4 August 1600 as a work “to be stayed” while copyright ownership was determined so we know it existed prior to that date. Further evidence is contained in Thomas Morley’s First Book of Ayres (1600) which contains “a musical setting for the song ‘It was a Lover and his Lass’,” which also appears in Shakespeare’s manuscript. The play’s first performance may indeed have been at Wilton House in 1603.

The most likely source of As You Like It is Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie (1586-87) by Thomas Lodge which was first published in 1590. Lodge’s story is itself based upon The Tale of Gamelyn sometimes wrongly ascribed to Chaucer and printed as an episode in The Canterbury Tales. The Tale of Gamelyn, first published in 1721, would have existed in manuscript form during Shakespeare’s lifetime and provides the intertwined plots and all of the characters with the exception of Duke Frederick’s court fool Touchstone and the melancholy Jaques.

Two other minor sources have been suggested with the most convincing being Robert Greene’s The Historie of Orlando Furioso (published 1594 but performed as early as 1592) which contains the carving of names on the bark of trees. Blokes carving love-poems on trees was already contained in Lodge’s account of Gamelyn, however, so this suggestion may well be overkill.

Internal evidence includes Phebe’s reference to the famous line “Whoever loved that loved not at first sight” from Marlowe’s Hero and Leander (1598) which dates from Marlowe’s death in 1593 and circulated in unfinished form before being completed and published in 1598. Staying with the Marlowe references, Michael Wood suggests in his four part DVD documentary In Search of Shakespearethat “the words of Touchstone ‘When a man’s verses cannot be understood, nor a man’s good wit seconded with the forward child understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room’ allude to Marlowe’s assassination.” From what we know of the circumstances of Marlowe’s demise this makes perfect sense to me.

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