A pastoral comedy of erotic entanglements which elegantly untie themselves in the end. Betrayed by the people who were supposed to care for them, three young people, Rosalind, Celia, and Orlando, flee to the Forest of Arden, a strange place, where they are free from the threats of treason or murder, but instead are exposed to the hazards of love. In Arden, identities and even gender can be hidden as one is granted the chance here to be someone else. It is a place to practice and learn, to act out one's imaginations and desires.
Written in 1600, Shakespeare based himself on a popular novel by Thomas Lodge, Rosalynde (1590), but made many important changes.
[In the Forest of Arden]
Here is the plot of the play.
The local Duke ("Duke Senior") has been overthrown by his brother, Duke
Frederick, and has gone in exile, together with his courtiers, in Arden
Forest like a second Robin hood. Sir Rowland de Bois, a friend of Duke
Senior, has recently died and under the law of primogeniture
his estate now belongs to his eldest son Oliver. Before Sir Rowland
died, he
made Oliver promise to take good care of his younger brother Orlando,
but Oliver treats him badly and refuses him his small inheritance from
their father’s estate. Consumed with jealousy, Oliver schemes instead to
have Orlando die in a match with Charles, Duke Frederick's powerful
wrestler. Against expectation, Orlando wins. When his trusted old
servant Adam tells him that Oliver is planning to murder him, he flees
to Arden Forest, and is soon at the court in the forest of Arden. Duke
Frederick feels threatened by Orlando's disappearance to the forest and
demands that Oliver bring him back within a month or he will loose all
his estates. So Oliver also will have to enter the forest.
Duke Senior’s daughter, Rosalind, and Duke Frederick’s daughter, Celia,
are inseparable cousins, reason why Rosalind lives with her uncle and
not with her exiled father. The two women meet the victorious Orlando at
the wrestling match, where Orlando and Rosalind fall in love. Duke
Frederick is unhappy at his niece's continuous appearance at the regular
court, and wants her to leave the
court within ten days. Celia thinks this is so unfair that she comes up
with the plan to run away together. They go in search of Rosalind's
father, the ex-duke, in the Forest of Arden, and take Touchstone the
jester with them. Rosalind dresses as a man, a young male page, so
that she will not be harassed on the way; Celia plays her sister Aliena, a shepherdess.
In
the second act all characters end up in the Forest of Arden, where as we saw
also the Duke Senior is in exile with his courtiers, such as the
melancholy philosopher Jaques. Orlando and Rosalind are in love with
each other, without having told each other. Orlando is so infatuated
that he hangs all the trees in the forest with love poems for her -
without knowing that she is walking around in the same forest, dressed
as a young man named "Ganymede" - and reading those poems. When Rosalind, in
her male disguise, comes upon her lover, she decides to hang on to her disguise as “Ganymede” to befriend Orlando, and teach him what it truly takes to win a woman's heart (he is too full of antiquated notions of artificial courtly love). She does that by asking Orlando to act as if he were in love with "him". The lovesick Orlando proves a ready student and he is slowly molded into a fit
lover for Rosalind - in her genuine person.
In this way, the forest becomes a place where the truth keeps emerging. Oliver, searching for Orlando in the forest, reforms after Orlando saves his life from a wild beast. Finally, Rosalind reveals her identity, triggering several weddings, including her own with Orlando and Celia’s with Oliver. Touchstone the jester marries Audrey the goatherd and Silvius gets his Phebe. Duke Frederick restores the dukedom to Duke Senior, who leaves the forest with his followers. More than the play so named, this is truly a case of "All's well that ends well."
Rosalind is one of Shakespeare's most engaging heroines, a confident and appealingly witty woman. Mostly in the company of her beloved cousin Celia, Rosalind is a
faithful friend, leader, and schemer. She stays true to her family and
friends throughout the story and dominates the stage. She is the main character of the play who brings out the true character of the others. Moreover, she upsets gender expectations: by claiming that women who are wild are smarter than those who are not,
Rosalind often refutes the perception of women as passive in their
pursuit of men. In the end, she is the leader who arranges the marriages of the others.
Another interesting character, albeit with a much smaller role, is one of the old Duke's closest friends, Jaques, a melancholic figure who gives the most
famous speech of the play, "the seven ages of man," beginning with the well-known monologue "All the world's a stage." He then describes
the seven different roles played by men in life, from infancy to old
age:
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
[The Seven Ages of Man by William Mulready, 1838]
As You Like It was filmed in 1936 in London by Paul Czinner with Elisabeth Bergner and Laurence Olivier. Paul Czinner was an Austrian Jew who fled his home country to avoid the Nazi persecution, and the same applies to star actress Elizabeth Bergner, who in exile became his wife. To these persecuted exiles, the escape to the Forest of Arden must have had the added symbolism of an escape to freedom.
[Elisabeth Bergner, 1929, by Mario von Bucovich]
The film's chief strength is Elisabeth Bergner as Rosalind. A delightful blend of womanly tenderness and gamine impishness, she is perfectly adjusted to the part. She can be all tears one instant, all taunting, feminine wit the next. She keeps the energy level in the somewhat understated film up. The personality that made her the leading actress in Austria and Germany carries well in this English film. Her accent has been criticized, but that is rather childish behavior: I can't see why a strong American or Australian accent would be better in Shakespeare than her German intonation. Moreover, English is an international language, which is spoken all over the world with countless different accents, and native English speakers should get used to that. In sum, I think this film is a very congenial production of Shakespeare, which deserves a higher appreciation than it generally receives. (P.S. the film is also notable for being scored by classical composer William Walton.)
By the way, I am curious to see the 2006 version by Kenneth Branagh which has been set in 19th c. Japan.