As You Like It

The first, and one of the only, concrete references to the Forest of Arden in As You Like It appears in Act I, Scene I where Charles informs Oliver that the duke senior will inhabit it. Charles tells Oliver, “They say he is already in the Forest of Arden and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England”. The Robin Hood reference makes note of the duke’s exile by the new duke Frederick, as Robin Hood was also exiled to a different, yet similar place of inhabitance (the Sherwood Forest). Charles continues his news with, “They say many young gentlemen flock to him every day and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world”. The reference to the golden world alludes to a time of fewer constrictions where laws didn’t exist and one lived free from modern responsibilities.

As You Like It’s production program goes into complementary descriptions of the forest by writing, “The forest speaks of freedom and the characters move from inhibition to exhibition, from restriction to a gentle wildness as the forest ripples its openheartedness out, ever out.” This exhibition is expressed through the freedom to love—the manifestation of this love and marriage, to which a sweeping majority of the characters partake in. The idea of freedom and time was also developed and portrayed in the production itself through particular staging effects.

Firstly, the square cut-out of dirt in the center of the stage appropriately represented the wrestling ring in the court. After the intermission, it became clear that the wooden floors meant to symbolize humanity and the restrictions of the court. Rosalind’s transformation into Ganymede mirrored the stage’s conversion from court to the Forest of Arden after this intermission as well. The articulately placed dirt square in the center of the stage surrounded by the pristine hardwood floors, symbolic of humanity’s restrictions, was spread to cover the entire stage. The alterations surely alluded to the transition from rules to freedom, from court to forest.

Another aspect of the stage that represented the forest were the towering wooden poles which did not seem to follow a set placement of any sort along the front of the stage, which is most likely representative of the organic patterns seen in a natural forest. Keeping true to nature through this aspect of the stage by staggering the poles was a wise staging decision, in my opinon. However, the more crowded rear part of the stage was  particularly more interesting as a viewer. The center of the floor was engineered as a rotating circle with similar tall wooden poles placed along the entire edge of the circle. I was under the impression that the contrast of the circle from the rectangular forefront of the stage represented different parts of the forest. This worked for me because it alluded to the vastness and utter magnitude of the Forest of Arden, which is something not easily portrayed on a stage with set parameters. The depicted size also helped the production achieve a sense of time and space, as the characters traveled through the forest and traversed the stage.

In addition to providing the allusion of distance, the rear circular portion of the stage also helped to exhibit time. I was captivated when the lights dimmed on the stage except for when strategically placed lighting shone on the wooden beams and the engineered circle began to rotate. The effect this had was one representative of night and day, the rise and setting of the sun, as the shadows of the poles shone on the floor. Ultimately, I saw it as a time lapse of a sunrise and sunset in real time, which was a highly effective way to distinguish between the changing of scenes and the passing of time.

In addition, the quickness of these shadows and the rotating circle lends itself back to the idea that Orlando presented in Act, 2, Scene 7 about the loss of time in the forest. Orlando apologizes to Duke Senior for putting on “the countenance of stern commandment” and admits to thinking that “all things had been savage here, But what’ever you are that in this desert inaccessible, under the shade of melancholy boughs, lose and neglect the creeping hours of time". The loss of time in the remote Forest of Arden shines through in this speech by Orlando, and is also expressed in the quickness of the shadows that represent the ability of time to escape the forest’s inhabitants.

Admittedly after reading the ‘Into the Woods’ piece by Jay Griffiths in the production’s program, with its heavy emphasis on the forest, I assumed the stage would be highly ornate and decorated. This both left me with a sense of excitement and a sense of worry. I was excited to see how Griffiths’ description of the forest would translate, but also feared an overelaborate stage would detract from the very essence of the play—the characters’ exchanges and dialogue. Griffiths attributes much to Arden by writing, “People thrive like trees in the forest: with a sense of sheer vivacity, the forest invites verve, encourage élan, the wordplay of many characters a verbal  ricochet in a forest which resounds with many voices—including it’s own”. So not only does Griffiths give the forest a voice, he also levels it with the voices of the characters. He continues with this idea of speech by writing, “For the forest is an actor in the play, it has a speaking part: there are ‘tongues in the tree, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.’” Comparing the presence of the forest to that of the actors, lent my expectations to envision an intensely staged production, which was not exactly what was delivered.

While the stage was not as ornate as I expected, ultimately I have to deem this a positive aspect of the production that I consider fell anything but flat. The production took full advantage of expressing the organic setting of a natural forest through various methods: the spreading of the dirt to represent the differences between court and Arden, the staggering of the wooden beams, and the various uses of the circular portion of the stage to signify distance and the passing of time. With expectations running high, sometimes less is indeed more and I consider this to be the case with Gregory Doran’s artistic decisions and staging choices made for As You Like It.