As You Like It

I've been reading this play and mulling over it because I have decided to do it for our first show in the fall of the next school year.  It is funny and fun and Mr. Price has all sorts of interesting ideas about the set (of course) and last year, when Bard on the Beach did it, they used Beatles songs as a kind of theme (I didn't see it because, when I was reading about the production, someone involved said something that rubbed me the wrong way -- about how the Beatles lyrics were more accessible or something, something that implied that the Beatles improved the play and although the person probably didn't mean what I took it to mean, I didn't like it and that put me off seeing the production. The reviewer was also excited that there was a wrestling match in the beginning and seemed to think that Bard on the Beach had thought of that, but of course, the wrestling is all Shakespeare).

Some of you might remember when we did Midsummer Night's Dream several years ago and we had the opening of the play in the lounge.  Although the kids were very unhappy about that idea, it worked extraordinarily well, and we are thinking of doing that again.  The beginning of the play is in the city and it is a corrupt place and I think it would be good to have it very noisy (like traffic going all the time) and garbage strewn and dirty feeling.  Then, once the principals leave the city and head to the forest of Arden, the audience will follow them into the theatre and the rest of the play will take place there.  The theatre will be all lush and Emily Carr and the sound will be birds and running water.  Doesn't that sound good?

The character of Duke Frederick is Trumpian to me.  I am thinking of having him wear a very blond wig.  He is impulsive and malign and does things without considering the consequences.  He has perpetrated some sort of coup which has sent the rightful duke into banishment in the forest.  The play has quite a theatrical side to it (well, of course, but I mean overtly) with the opening wrestling match, which I would like to do very WWE-style and lots of music and Touchstone, who I would like to see kind of Rodney Dangerfield (does anyone who isn't on "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" know who I'm talking about?)  And of course, as is often the case with Shakespearean comedies, there is the gender bending of Rosalind pretending to be a boy, Ganymede.  She chooses the name, Ganymede, which is the name of a beautiful youth who Zeus (in the form of an eagle) abducted and brought to Olympus to be his cupbearer, and then, when she encounters Orlando in the forest (they met briefly in the city and fell in love), she (in the guise of Ganymede) tells him to pretend that she is Rosalind and he can woo her for practice -- oh, yes, very confusing!  There are other couples who are in love, too, and it's just great fun and I know we'll have a ball putting it together.