The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 15.0301  Tuesday, 3 February 2004

[1]     From:   Richard Sherrington <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Monday, 02 Feb 2004 10:37:44 -0400
        Subj:   Re: SHK 15.0277 How Like You This?

[2]     From:   Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Monday, 02 Feb 2004 14:18:37 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 15.0277 How Like You This?

[3]     From:   Edward Pixley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Tuesday, 3 Feb 2004 09:59:01 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 15.0253 How Like You This?

[4]     From:   Brian Willis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Tuesday, 3 Feb 2004 07:15:43 -0800 (PST)
        Subj:   Re: SHK 15.0277 How Like You This?


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Richard Sherrington <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Monday, 02 Feb 2004 10:37:44 -0400
Subject: 15.0277 How Like You This?
Comment:        Re: SHK 15.0277 How Like You This?

The Stratford Canada video of their production is good too. Only
marred by it's being before a live audience with the actors having
to project to the back of the theater.  Should still be available
from the www.cbc.ca web site.  Poor Yorick may have it too.

Richard

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Monday, 02 Feb 2004 14:18:37 -0500
Subject: 15.0277 How Like You This?
Comment:        Re: SHK 15.0277 How Like You This?

As it happens, I watched my DVD of the BBC AYLI only two days ago.
I can't agree with Bob Marks's admiration for that production.  In
fact, it may be the least charming and thoughtful AYLI I have ever
seen.  The director (Basil Coleman) seemed to be more comfortable
taking pretty pictures of Glamis Castle and its environs than in
shaping the plot and characters into a coherent whole.

Helen Mirren, for example, made no effort to play a woman trying to
appear to be a boy, even though she kept her clothes on for once
(damn it).  And Orlando (Brian Stirner) wasn't fooled for a minute.
  Unless he was trying to portray the most perfectly bisexual and
fickle character ever conceived, he seemed to have no doubt that
"Ganymede" was actually Rosalind.  (By the way, no one could even
figure out a consistent way to pronounce her name.)

As for Jacques, Richard Pasco gave a creditable portrayal of
clinical depression, but not a shred of philosophical melancholy and
not the slightest spark of comic spirit.

Except for Richard Easton's highly professional Duke Frederick, the
less said about the rest of the cast the better. But I would like to
single out John Moulder-Brown as Hymen, who was particularly
execrable.  He read his lines as if he were reciting them for his
grammar school class.

But I do not agree that this play is unperformable.  The Globe put
on an extremely entertaining production in 1998, with Anastasia
Hille as an especially vivacious and intelligent Rosalind.

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Edward Pixley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Tuesday, 3 Feb 2004 09:59:01 -0500
Subject: 15.0253 How Like You This?
Comment:        Re: SHK 15.0253 How Like You This?

Brian Willis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.> writes,

 >I have to admit failing to recall a single As You Like It that I
enjoyed
 >or that left me energized.

My first experience of As You Like It in production was the one
directed by Edward Payson Call at the Guthrie Theatre back in the
mid-1960s, when Guthrie was still artistic director for the company.
  At Guthrie's urging, Call set the play in the antebellum South,
where a dying aristocracy had been displaced and was trying to
redefine itself.  At the time, I did not know Call's reasons for
choosing that setting, but the energy of the production was
astonishing, and the language, whether in the mouths of the rustics
or the upper classes, was enchanting.  I look back on it as one of
my great theatre experiences, along with Hume Cronyn's The Miser and
Zoe Caldwell's The Way of the World, also at The Guthrie.  If memory
serves me correctly, Guthrie directed both of these productions himself.

Ed Pixley

[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Brian Willis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Tuesday, 3 Feb 2004 07:15:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: 15.0277 How Like You This?
Comment:        Re: SHK 15.0277 How Like You This?

Bob Marks writes:

     "Have you seen the BBC production of AYLI? I can't think of any
of the
     Comedies that I preferred to it. The disguised Rosalind being
wooed in a
     practice session by Orlando, the Seven Ages of Man speech to
name just
     two things that spring to mind.."

Truly a great speech, but I have not seen the BBC version. I will
certainly give it a try. I want to like the play and there moments I
do like, but perhaps I'm still waiting for that one production that
does it for me. Hopefully, the BBC can assist. Thanks Bob for the
recommendation.

Brian Willis

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