As You Like It (1982 TV) part 11 of 16

Shakespeare's fanciful play, filmed at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival before a live audience.


Roberta Maxwell ... Rosalind
Rosemary Dunsmore ... Celia
Nicholas Pennell ... Jaques
John Jarvis ... Silvius
Mary Haney ... Phebe
Andrew Gillies ... Orlando

directed by John Hirsch

It needs to be stressed that Rosalind's view of love is highly intelligent (that is, emotionally intelligent) and sensitive. This is not the statement of a cynic, because we know that Rosalind is very much in love, passionately eager to be with Orlando or to talk about him as much as she can. But the experience is not corrupting her response to life. She will not permit herself or Orlando to be deceived into thinking love is something other than the excitingly real experience she is going through—love is the most wonderfully transforming experience for her but it is not the sum total of everything life has to offer (as Orlandos poems make out). This fusion of passion and intelligence, shot through with a humour which enables her to laugh at herself as much as at other people, makes Rosalind a wonderfully attractive character.

This complex attitude first emerges when she discovers Orlando's poetry. Of course, she knows the poetry is really poor, and she can laugh heartily at Touchstone's damning parody of all the words which rhyme with "Rosalind." But at the same time she is erotically thrilled that Orlando is around and that he is in love with her. Rather than being embarrassed by the wretched sentimentality of her lover, she simultaneously loves the fact that her feelings are returned and can laugh at his attempt to express them. This is not laughter at Orlando, but at the incongruity of the situation and joy at the mutuality of their feelings.

Consider also her sense that the youthful love she is now enjoying will not last. She knows that and is not going to shield herself from that awareness in conventionally romantic platitudes: "No, no, Orlando; men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives" (4.1.124-127). Of course, time will change the passionate excitement she now feels. But she's not going to act like Marlowe's Nymph who denies the passionate shepherd his love because she's afraid of the destructive powers of time. No, she will not let any future fear interrupt or qualify the enormous joy she derives out of being in love right at this moment. What the future will bring will happen. That is no reason not to appreciate the immediate joys of the love she feels for Orlando.

-- from a lecture prepared by Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• As-You-Like-It
• William-Shakespeare
• literature
• theater
• play
• pastoral
• Roberta-Maxwell
• Rosalynde
• Forest-of-Arden

[beccaa224]

Love it!



[roseslink2000]

Thank you. Brilliant!