osprey_archer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer) wrote2025-01-03 09:38 am
osprey_archer) wrote2025-01-03 09:38 am
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As You Like It
We read As You Like It in British Lit in high school. (As I’ve been writing these reviews, I’m realizing that I read a ton of Shakespeare in high school.) Sweet Celia abandons her father’s court in order to go into exile with her beloved cousin Rosalind, who repays Celia’s loving devotion by ditching her in order to woo some guy by cracking misogynistic jokes with him. Thanks! I hate it!
However, I liked Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado about Nothing so much that I ended up watching his As You Like It too. But I remember nothing about it, except that it was set in 19th century Japan, but all the actors were white, but IIRC not in a way that the film ever comments on or explains. (Are they missionaries or something? I have no idea.) I did not feel this was a successful transposition of Shakespeare in time and space.
But people who love Shakespeare always seem to love Rosalind, so I thought, okay, let’s give the National Theater’s version a try. Maybe third time’s the charm.
Nope!
Or, okay, the production has many good points. Fascinated by the decision to present the first part of the play (at court) as an office and then have a gigantic pulley pull up all the tables and chairs so they’re hanging down over the stage, and the hanging skeins of furniture are the Forest of Arden. Weird and interesting. Love the people sitting among the chair forest providing the sound effects, love the scene with the sheep where the sheep are just people in white sweaters, love all the scenes with the singing. (Is it shape-note singing? I don’t know what kind it is but it’s gorgeous.)
But Rosalind remains a gigantic dick and I can’t stand her. As Celia says, “You have simply misus'd our sex in your love-prate,” but worse than spouting misogynistic bullshit at Orlando (who doesn’t even agree with her! They’re not even bonding over it! So what’s the point?) is the way that she treats Phoebe. She harangues Phoebe for not loving the shepherd Silvius, like Phoebe owes it to Silvius to return his devotion, then tricks Phoebe into marrying Silvius by promising to marry Phoebe “if ever I marry woman.” What a fucking asshole.
As with the Problem of Claudio, this is too engrained in the play to really take it out. But unlike Much Ado about Nothing, there is simply not enough that I like about As You Like It for me to keep bothering with it. There’s simply so much other Shakespeare that I could be watching.
***
It occurs to me that maybe the reason I keep putting off Twelfth Night is because I’ve been subconsciously afraid Viola will be just as much of a dick as Rosalind. Readers! Do you think that this is so?
However, I liked Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado about Nothing so much that I ended up watching his As You Like It too. But I remember nothing about it, except that it was set in 19th century Japan, but all the actors were white, but IIRC not in a way that the film ever comments on or explains. (Are they missionaries or something? I have no idea.) I did not feel this was a successful transposition of Shakespeare in time and space.
But people who love Shakespeare always seem to love Rosalind, so I thought, okay, let’s give the National Theater’s version a try. Maybe third time’s the charm.
Nope!
Or, okay, the production has many good points. Fascinated by the decision to present the first part of the play (at court) as an office and then have a gigantic pulley pull up all the tables and chairs so they’re hanging down over the stage, and the hanging skeins of furniture are the Forest of Arden. Weird and interesting. Love the people sitting among the chair forest providing the sound effects, love the scene with the sheep where the sheep are just people in white sweaters, love all the scenes with the singing. (Is it shape-note singing? I don’t know what kind it is but it’s gorgeous.)
But Rosalind remains a gigantic dick and I can’t stand her. As Celia says, “You have simply misus'd our sex in your love-prate,” but worse than spouting misogynistic bullshit at Orlando (who doesn’t even agree with her! They’re not even bonding over it! So what’s the point?) is the way that she treats Phoebe. She harangues Phoebe for not loving the shepherd Silvius, like Phoebe owes it to Silvius to return his devotion, then tricks Phoebe into marrying Silvius by promising to marry Phoebe “if ever I marry woman.” What a fucking asshole.
As with the Problem of Claudio, this is too engrained in the play to really take it out. But unlike Much Ado about Nothing, there is simply not enough that I like about As You Like It for me to keep bothering with it. There’s simply so much other Shakespeare that I could be watching.
***
It occurs to me that maybe the reason I keep putting off Twelfth Night is because I’ve been subconsciously afraid Viola will be just as much of a dick as Rosalind. Readers! Do you think that this is so?
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No! Actually, in interesting comparison to Rosalind's "misogynistic bullshit" flirting strategy, there is in fact a scene where (to paraphrase) Orsino is like "women can't LOVE like MEN do" and Viola-as-Cesario is like WELL ACTUALLY.
But also the production of Twelfth Night that's on NTAH messed me up for unrelated reasons, because gender-swapping Malvolia ended up making that whole plotline feel a lot darker. (Although the actress absolutely kills it, in both the comedic and tragic aspects, so I'm not saying don't watch it! But. I feel like fair warning is due.)
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https://youtu.be/M5W8LyuivYs?feature=shared
I saw the 2018 version (with Jack Laskey as Rosalind) and loved that too.
https://youtu.be/fRPkR3zLB8w?feature=shared
And Rebecca Hall, in a US tour, way before those.
Your takes are valid, of course. But in many ways I would say that it's my favorite, and I wish for a time machine to see Alan Rickman as Jacques at the RSC.
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But anyway, with Twelfth Night the problematicness is mostly in (a) Orsino not thinking much of women (b) the servants torturing Malvolio far beyond the point where it's funny, though sometimes some of that is cut.
I hope you do watch Twelfth Night, it's a treat, though I think best enjoyed when one is approximately twelve years old :-) The 1996 movie is good fun, and the version in the BBC Shakespeare collection is also good. There's also a Branagh version from 1988, which I don't remember that well but reviews say that it's a relatively dark adaption, which sounds right.
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Generally AYLI-neutral though I am, I found the 2009 Shakespeare's Globe film mentioned by another commenter very fun. IIRC, the not-actually-explained explanation for the alleged-Japan setting of the Branagh film was that they were foreign merchants (butwhy?.jpg)
I would not say Viola is as dickish, no. There are a lot of good Twelfth Nights out there, but the National Theatre film is pretty entertaining; I wouldn't skip it.
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(...also obviously in an ideal production all the weddings are fake at the end and Rosalind marrying everyone off is also obvious trolling. Nobody has ever done this yet EITHER.)
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I tend to think that Rosalind is at least partly joking/overcompensating to present as macho with the misogyny -- it's more fun and more funny that way -- but the whole Phoebe plot does make it harder. And poor Celia deserves so much better. It really does feel like the forest of Arden is under a big mind-alteration field that gives people weird crushes and changes of heart, tbh.
However Viola is nowhere near as much of a dick! Other characters are real jerks to Malvolio (himself a snooty officious jerk, but he doesn't deserve the prank they play in return) but Viola isn't part of that, and generally reacts to misogyny with either awkward deflection or defending women's honor. I don't know if you'll like Twelfth Night or not (I mostly do) but I don't think you'll dislike it for that same reason, at least.
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Above
I have to see Twelfth Night at some point. I was looking at a list of Shakespeare's plays recently and I was aghast to realize how few of his comedies I've seen. I'm doing pretty good on the tragedies, and I knew I hadn't done many of the histories (unless Zeater's Queen Margaret counts as all three parts of Henry VI, kinda sorta?), but I thought I'd seen more of the comedies than I have...
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Viola isn't a dick, but the Malvolio plotline is rough.
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