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Photo: K. Ganesan

Sparkling Giving it all

Staging ‘As You Like it’ is a real acid test for any theatre group. For, the play is mostly dialogue-oriented and the level of understanding of the performers, alien to the culture depicted in the backdrop of the play, is always under a cloud of doubt. Yet, it is one of Shakespeare’s more frequently staged comedies.

The uncomplicated plot structure of the play reinforces public faith in restoration and regeneration of society through affirmation of values like brotherly love, marital union, tolerance, and optimism.

The plot revolves around a dramatic problem in the slanted attitudes of two evil brothers towards good brothers, which finally gets resolved. In between, it depicts related obstacles to marriage which several couples overcome, to bring a happy ending – so typical of a Shakespearean comedy.

Pastoral is primarily a vehicle for gentle satire on urban values, on some of the corrupting manners of the court, where flattery and fine language becomes the order of the day. This is visually palpable in the play.

But in ‘As You Like It’ if given a free choice, any of the principal characters with due exception of the philosophical Jacques would actually prefer to live in the countryside rather than the court.

The characters and their Elizabethan English come across with clarity, and the inventive action supports the message. Consequently, the overall production is a successful attempt.

In the opening scene, the wrestling match between Orlando a disenfranchised younger brother, and Charles, the masked court champion, could have been orchestrated well. For it could have brought to light the valour of Orlando.

Shakespeare’s plot has several noble characters escaping court cruelties by hiding out in the Forest of Arden, where they become free conditionally to explore authentic feelings without fears or rigid social conventions. Unfortunately, this leads to a meandering second act while potential lovers sort themselves out into appropriate pairs in preparation for a finale that sets everything right. But there are compensations.

The high point of the second act is an excellent rendition of Shakespeare’s outlook on life through his famous “Seven Ages of Man” monologue (“All the world’s a stage …”), delivered by none other than the melancholic Jaques.

A deep psychological approach is unwarranted to any of the characters, if one expects to question the logic of their motivation, as a matter of interest, then the play is not going to satisfy expectations on those lines. There is far more direct pressure on the spectator to perceive interactions between characters, the exploration of some themes, especially issues concerning love. This does not mean that it’s not theatrically interesting and worth talking about but here the thematic purposes are more obvious than they are in more psychologically plausible plays.

“As You Like It” is a play, which has all its concerns for love, and particularly the attitudes and the language appropriate to young romantic love. This is quite obvious from the relationships between Orlando and Rosalind, Silvius and Phoebe, Touchstone and Audrey, and Celia and Oliver. The action of the play moves back and forth among these couples, inviting us to compare the different styles and to recognise from those comparisons some important facts about young love.

Rosalind is Shakespeare’s greatest and most vibrant comic female role, and literary references say that the causal effect in any successful production of “As You Like It”, the audience will all leave the theatre in love with her.

Anita Jim, student of M.Phil. English, as female lead Rosalind did justification to the role. With her clear renditions and gesticulations, she stole the show.

Rosalind is one character in the play, portrayed to be intelligent and erotic, anchoring a sense of love. Her task is to try to educate others out of their false notions of love, especially the one, which suggests that the real business of love is adopting an inflated sonnet language and the pertinent stance that goes with it.

In recent times, the treatment of love in “As You Like It” has been an issue of concern among the feminists in reference to the issue of gender where the banished Rosalind protests herself in exile by disguising herself as a young man Ganymede.

The principal reason for such a thematic concern in the play is the aspects of cross-dressing and role-playing, which has become fodder for many theorists on alternative sexuality. The central love interest between Rosalind and Orlando calls into question the conventional wisdom about men’s and women’s gender roles and challenges our preconceptions about these roles in courtship, erotic love, and sexuality.

The play, of course, in its closing scene celebrates “conventional heterosexual” marriages. But by that time it has offered us, at least by powerful suggestions, some erotic alternatives, without condemning such possibilities as inherently unnatural. And, depending upon how some of these key scenes are played, a production of “As You Like It” can evoke in the audience some very interesting and ambivalent feelings about the question of sexuality and more appropriately, mature sexuality.

The Fourth Wall Theatre group of the American College seems to have developed a liking towards the plays of the English dramatist. For, they are doing it for the fourth time in as many years.

Donning the role of Orlando, K. Arun Kumar, I M.A. English, was equal to the task pairing with Anita Jim.

N. Elango, the director of the play, produced by the English Literary of Association of The American College, has done justice with his effective condensation.

Kudos to the set and costume designer B. Udayakumar for having caught the attention of the audience. The music by R. Prabhakar, Coordinator, Department of Visual Communications, set the tone for the play and the song sung by Frederick Samuel, I M.A. English, was impressive.

At the end of the day, the audience is filled with gratification when they understand that the little amount they spent for the play will go towards poor students’ education fund of the department.

The show for the public will be held today at 6.30 p.m. at the American College Auditorium.

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