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[shakespeareanthoughts]

Do you think that the gnome version is better?

Depends on what you mean by better. Is it more fun? Certainly. Is it true to Shakespeare? If you think Shakespeare would love dumbing down his play and turning every character into a garden gnome, than sure. Personally, I prefer the Baz Lurhman film but that’s because the gnome version is literally a children’s animated film. But you do you.

Thanks for the ask!

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Concept

imagine: a CHEESY WESTERN production of Henry IV part 1. The tavern where they all hang out is an old West saloon. Falstaff looks like Rooster Cogburn from True Grit. Worcester wears a black hat. The robbery sequence is actually a TRAIN robbery. And all of the dialogue is exactly Shakespeare’s until it gets to Hal’s line, “Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere/ Nor can one England brook a double reign,” at which point, it’s replaced by the words, “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us.”

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[shakespeareanthoughts]

The discovery of truth by feigning, and of what is wisdom and what folly by debacle, is the enter of As You Like It. It is a play of meetings and encounters, of conversations and sets of wit; Orlando versus Jaques, Touchstone versus Corin, Rosalind versus Jaques, Rosalind versus Phoebe, and above all Rosalind versus Orlando.

Helen Gardner on As You Like It in Shakespeare: the Comedies

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The whole idea of dramatic character is forever changed by [Hamlet]. Claudius is wonderfully rendered, but is still a guilty tyrant and usurper; Polonius is a garrulous bore, a crafty operator and spymaster, yet a respected statesman; we think we know the type or put together from experience a good idea of it, but no one much like Hamlet ever existed before... To take him as the herald of a new age is neither idolatrous nor hyperbolical... The new mastery is a mastery of the ambiguous, the unexpected, of conflicting evidence and semantic audacity. We are challenged to make sense, even mocked if we fail.

Frank Kermode on Hamlet in Shakespeare’s Language

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The play sets before us an intricately woven tapestry of high and low characters, of public and private motives, of politics and festivity, of poetry and prose, of history and comedy, of fact and fiction, allowing us to see and hear not only the variegated play world but history itself as a brilliantly polychromatic pageant.

David Scott Kastan on Henry IV, Part I

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Shakespeare and his contemporaries had no very clear prescription for the kind of work a tragedy ought to be, beyond the simple working assumption that it would be concerned with the death and downfall of the mighty.

Michael Neil on tragedies

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Love's Labour's Lost needs no scenery, because its characters hunt renown across a linguistic landscape.

John Kerrigan on Love’s Labour’s Lost

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Ranking As You Like It Characters

Rosalind: hilariously savage and incredibly smart, we all strive to be her

Jacques: tells it like it is, unapologetically melancholy

Duke Senior: livin’ life to the fullest 

Touchstone: definition of a backhanded compliment

Celia: loyalest sweetheart you will ever meet, maybe a little too loyal, needs to sort out her feelings

Adam: loyal to the fullest, great intentions, pretty solid dude i respect that

Corin: most experience here, just wants to live his simple shepherd life again, would probably be good friends with Duke Senior

Orlando: pretty wimpy but at least listens to Rosalind/Ganymede about what women want, noble goals and terrible situation so lets give him some credit

Hymen: literal god

Phoebe: probably best off marrying Jacques tbh, doesn’t deserve Silvius

Silvius: hearts in the right place but head’s not in the game

Le Beau: lives for the gossip

Charles: pretty brutal but at least he gave Oliver the heads up

Audrey: kind of insignificant

Oliver: tried to kill his own brother in his sleep, not a cool dude, guess he redeems himself but i dont buy it

Duke Frederick: probably not the best parental figure, insecure and jealous

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Peace, ho! I bar confusion. 'Tis I must make conclusion Of these most strange events. Here's eight that must take hands To join in Hymen's bands, If truth holds true contents. You and you no cross shall part. You and you are heart in heart. You to his love must accord Or have a woman to your lord. You and you are together As the winter to foul winter. Whiles a wedlock hymn we sing, Feed yourselves with questioning, That reason wonder may diminsh How thus we met, and these things finish.

Hymen, As You Like It (5.4.130-145)

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He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.

Duke Senior, As You Like It (5.4.110-111)

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Quick Notes

I want to be Rosalind

But I’m really just Jacques

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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.

Rosalind (as Ganymede), As You Like It (4.1.154-157)

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Then to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

Rosalind (as Ganymede), As You Like It (4.1.25-27)

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Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might: "Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?"

Phoebe, As You Like It (3.5.86-87)

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I pray you,do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine. Besides, I like you not.

Rosalind (as Ganymede), As You Like It (3.5.77-79)

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