Visual Aspects of Live Performance
Viewing the PCPA production of As You Like It was my first exposure
to a complete live Shakespeare play.
Overall, my understanding of AYLI was enriched by the performance. The production helped to fill some of
the imaginative gaps I could not bridge when just reading the text, as well as
augmenting my understanding of certain scenes and exchanges with visual
reinforcements from the staging and blocking.
While reading the text, I developed an image of
the DukeÕs court and the Forest of Arden.
However, I had a difficult time envisioning how the stage could
represent these settings without multiple set changes. The productionÕs simple set design
effectively captured both of these diverse locales. Upstage, the hanging columns represented the trees of the
forest, as well as hanging tapestries or other wall coverings found in the
court. Downstage, the cubic blocks
served double duty as rocks or tree stumps in the forest, and as chairs or
furniture in the court. This set design
was by no means explicit, and still required much imagination to appreciate[SM1]. However, it was visually effective
enough to trigger my imagination and tie together the images I had developed
from the text with the staging of the live performance.
The costume design was another aspect of the
staging that intrigued me. The
director chose to set the play in the late 1890Õs. What I found interesting was that the specific time period
of the clothing did not impact me as much as the stratification of social
classes in the forest, which the clothing represented. In the top tier of the forest society
was the Duke Senior with his lords and attendants, dressed in tweed and flannel
suits, looking ever so refined.
They roamed through the forest, not like Robin Hood of England, doing
good deeds for others, but as a group of socialites singing, eating, and
vacationing; doing good deeds for themselves[SM2]. At the bottom rung of the forest
society were the true residents of the forest, Corin, William, and Audrey to
name a few. Their clothes were
simple, and sometimes tattered, suggesting their work and way of life was more
of a priority than their image. We
see modern versions of this stratification in certain paradise vacation spots
where the poorer locals serve the wealthy vacationing patrons[SM3]. Touchstone made an interesting
transition from the well-dressed and refined fool of the court to the tattered
and barefoot fool of the forest, when he fell in love with Audrey, by giving up
his fine suit and social stature for the more simple attire of forest life[SM4]. This visual gesture of TouchstoneÕs
love,[SM5] exemplified the use of
costumes to depict the social order in the forest, something the text alone
could not do.
There were also two scenes where character
blocking helped to make the impact of each scene more intense. The first instance is the scene where
Duke Fredrick banishes Rosalind and scolds Celia for defending her (1.3.74-82). In the production, Celia was taller
than her father, so she moved upstage and down one of the steps where her
father could look down on her when he scolded her[SM6]. The blocking movements were subtle, but
effective. This approach allowed
Celia to stand up and show some strength to her father, but still allowed the
Duke to dominate over her. The
second instance was JaquesÕ famous speech on the seven ages of life
(2.7.139-166). For the blocking in
this scene, the on stage audience was positioned in a circle around
Jaques. As he was speaking about
these seven ages of life, he was moving around the circle referencing the ages
to the different characters around him.
I am not aware if this approach is common in AYLI productions, but I
enjoyed it because it bolstered this very moving speech with some visual reinforcement[SM7]. A more subtle observation was that the
cyclic nature of life Jaques described was recreated with his circular movement
around his audience, by ending his speech in the same location where it began[SM8].
The greatest benefit of viewing the live
production after reading the text was my increased understanding of the
characters and their interactions with each other, via the visual aspects of
the production[SM9].
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[SM1]Nice!
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[SM2]TerrificÑand
clearly an element of satire invited by the scriptÑthough I much prefer the
sentimental version
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[SM3]nice
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[SM4]good
observation
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[SM5]no comma
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[SM6]well
observed and described
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[SM7]great
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[SM8]wow!
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[SM9]MichaelÑthis
is a great pleasure to read. Your
understanding is acute and profound.
Looks to me as if youÕd make a fine director. A
SM