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| As You Like It. | ||
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The play was presented on February 28 through March 2, 2002 in Girault Auditorium.
One of Shakespeare's early comedies, As You Like It (1598-1599) was familiar to Elizabethan audiences as an example of "Christian" comedy. Although the play does include two off-stage spiritual conversions, the "Christian" designation does not refer to religion itself but it denotes the restoration and regeneration of society through the affirmation of certain Christian values such as brotherly love, marital union, and optimism about life in general.
The plot is very simple: the resolution of the dramatic problem in the warped attitudes of two evil brothers toward good brothers and related obstacles to marriage for several couples in the play. Rosalind and Orlando demonstrate a developing love born at first sight. Silvius has a deep, consuming but proper, gentle love for Phoebe the gypsy who is precocious and physical and is dealt an ill-advised infatuation on a physical level. Touchstone confuses love with sex and passion in his approach to the lusty, simple goat herder, Audrey. Both learn the value and propriety of restraint and a happy ending is never in doubt. Oliver’s conversion and reconciliation with his brother brings about the final love affair with Celia who is tutored in the ways of love and eventually discovers love with someone whom she has known for a long time.
On one level, the play is a simple, diverting amusement. But on a deeper level, it provides opportunities for its main characters to discuss a host of subjects (love, aging, the natural world, and death) from their particular points of view. Listen for I Corinthians Chapter 13 paraphrased; Proverbs 12:15 and I Corinthians 3:18, the discourse on a fool and his wisdom; as well as Matthew 6:26 in God’s providing for the birds of the air.
As You Like It presents us with the respective worldviews of Jaques, a chronically melancholy pessimist pre-occupied with the negative aspects of life, and Rosalind, the play's heroine who recognizes life's difficulties but holds fast to a positive attitude that is kind, playful, and, above all, wise. In the end, the enjoyment that we receive from the play's comedy is reinforced and validated by a Christian philosophy gently woven into the text by a benevolent Shakespeare.
The locations for this production are Duke Frederick’s Palace in Vienna, Austria at the time of the Hapsburgs, 1870. The other location is the mythical forest of Arden, which we have set in western Hungary, a land occupied by roving gypsies.
