Lesson Overview:
Students will explore the nature of comedy by informally staging the opening scenes in Shakespeare's As You Like It. Students will consider a variety of stylistic approaches that may be used in staging the play and select the one they think is most interesting and that will most effectively convey the text to the audience. Students will seek support for their choices from theatrical tradition.
Length of Lesson:
Three 45-minute class periods
Instructional Objectives:
Students will:
- present informal scenes from As You Like It.
- develop multiple interpretations and visual and aural production choices.
- justify interpretation, and visual and aural artistic choices made for performance with support from the text and theatrical tradition.
- constructively evaluate their own and others' collaborative efforts and artistic choices in informal presentations.
- analyze and critique presentations by their peers, taking into account the context, and constructively discuss the effect of their artistic choices.
Instructional Plan:
Note: The following are notes you, the teacher, should read and understand before beginning this lesson with the students. Before beginning this lesson, give students the assignment of reading all of the background material on the play in the Kennedy Center's Spotlight On Theater brochure on As You Like It, paying particular attention to the following: The synopsis of the play, The History of As You Like It, Shakespeare's Pastoral-Comical, and Characters and Themes in As You Like It.
As You Like It has been referred to as the "happiest of Shakespeare's comedies" (Tanner), and yet it has a set of mean-spirited brothers, one of whom wants to have his little brother murdered (Oliver and Orlando), the other of whom has banished his older brother into the woods and shows little empathy for his daughter and niece (Duke Frederick and Duke Senior). How do such wicked characters fit into a "happy comedy" and how do we as theatre practitioners handle them? Although the "evil" brothers in As You Like It will be somewhat amazingly transformed before the play is over, we still have to deal with them early on to set the play in motion. The question that actors and directors face is one of balance. How dark or how bright is the play? Not all productions of As You Like It are as happy and bright as Tanner suggests. Some modern directors have taken darker views of the play with productions described by critic Sylvan Barnet as
being more like Chekhov in tone than that of a happy romantic pastoral comedy. (For more information on this see the Colorado Shakespeare Festival's Dramaturgical Notes written on As You Like It.) There have been many different approaches to staging the play through the last century. Some productions might honor the pastoral tradition and emphasize the idealized setting of the beautiful Forest of Arden. Others might see the play as Shakespeare's playful commentary on the pastoral tradition. With naturalism in vogue in late 19th century England an emphasis was put on realistic settings, leading one director, Henry Irving, to put real grass on the stage of his production of As You Like It (Styan). In the 1920s, a production directed by Nigel Playfair was staged with all of the trappings of a bright and splashy musical (Styan). Tell the students that they are going to stage the opening scenes of As You Like It, in which they will experiment with various approaches to the text to determine the tone and style they think is appropriate for a production of this play. Try to generate some questions students may want to consider as they read the scenes and explore the text. (Here are only a few of the many possibilities. Is it dark and disturbing, or light and frothy? Is it a folktale with a fairy tale ending, or is it a serious commentary on family relationships, love, and social class?)
Begin the actual lesson by giving the students a copy of Orlando's opening monologue from As You Like It. (The
complete text of As You Like It can be found at MIT's Complete Works of William Shakespeare.) First read through the passage together and clarify any questions students may have about vocabulary and the content of the speech. Ask students to detail what Orlando's complaints are and what he plans to do about it. (Some examples: His older brother is depriving him of an education and is keeping him from advancing. He is not being treated as well as his younger brother, Jacques. His brother's horses are treated better than he is. He is not going to put up with it anymore, but he doesn't know exactly what he will do.) Now ask for students to discuss what they imagine Orlando's emotional state is as he speaks these lines to Adam. List the ideas on the board. (Among the many possible answers: angry, petulant, jealous, hurt, indignant, furious, reasonable, curious, surprised) Now let the students work in pairs experimenting with the lines and the various emotions. Tell the students that you want them to come up with several ways of interpreting the emotional content of the opening monologue. Then ask for volunteers to present various readings of the monologue to the class. Engage students in a discussion about the differences in the impact in the various interpretations. Is the character believable? (Can he be believable? Do you want him to be believable?) Is the character likeable? Do you feel empathy for him? (Do you care about him? Can you care about him?) Is there any humor in the speech? Is the speech upsetting or disturbing in any way? What does Orlando want? That is, what does he hope to achieve by telling all of this to Adam?
Ask them to keep these ideas in mind as you read through Act I sc i and Act I sc iii aloud together with your students. Clarify any questions your students may have regarding the content and the vocabulary. Then divide the class into groups and give them the Scene Study Rehearsal Guide Act I sc i and Scene Study Rehearsal Guide Act I sc iii worksheets to assist them in preparing their informal presentations. Tell them that the Scene Study Rehearsal Guides will help them to explore the tone and style of the scene in the same way they explored the opening monologue at the beginning of class. Once they have explored the scene they should determine together what style and tone they think is most appropriate for the text and then rehearse it several times. Before each scene is presented the group should give a brief introduction, which states the style and tone they applied to the text with a brief explanation supporting their choice. Have them use the questions in the Scene Observation Form worksheet as a jumping off point. Remind the students that the point of observation for them as audience members is to determine to what degree various styles of presentation affect the meaning of the text.
After all of the scenes have been presented ask students to consider the role actors and directors have on the meaning of the text.
Assessment:
Use the Assessment Rubric to assess your students' work.
Extensions:
Have students stage the wrestling scene in Act I sc ii. For a prompt, have them look at the illustrations of the wrestling scene on the website Shakespeare Illustrated.
- Daniel Maclise. The Wrestling Scene from "As You Like It," 1855.
- Francis Hayman. The Wrestling Scene from "As You Like It," c. 1740-42.
Sources:
Print:
- Barnet, Sylvan, ed. William Shakespeare Comedies, Vol 2, Introduction by Tony Tanner, 1996, Everyman's Library,
David Campbell Publishers, Ltd., London, 1996.
- Shakespeare, W., Gibson, Rex, ed. As You Like It, Cambridge School Shakespeare, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 2000.
- Styan, John. The Shakespeare Revolution, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1977.
Web:
Authors:
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Jim Carpenter, Ph.D. (retired)
La Plata HS
Charles County Public Schools
La Plata, MD
