AYLI Act 4: what makes a marriage "fake", awkward jokes, and more songs...

OK, this entry is going to be a whirlwind as I have Midsummer callbacks to prepare for but don't want to delay this post another day.

4.1

the scene starts with Rosalind and Jaques discussing his melancholy and their comparative life experience:

ROSALIND

A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's; then, to have seen much and to have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

JAQUES

Yes, I have gained my experience.

ROSALIND

And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad; and to travel for it too!

Oh Jaques, I understand!! I feel like that about some of my adventures/travels for sure, or when I think of student debt... BUT lucky for me.... SO MANY of my experiences have also made me happy beyond words. All I can do is hope that after the play ends, Jaques finds his own happy experiences that balance his melancholy (but not take it away entirely, because that's part of what we love about him, right?) Then in comes Orlando to woo and be cured of his lovesickness...

ORLANDO

Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!

JAQUES

Nay, then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse.

More referencing poetic terms. love. it.

ROSALIND

Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight: I had as lief be wooed of a snail.

ORLANDO

Of a snail?

ROSALIND

Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head; a better jointure, I think, than you make a woman

I LOVE moments in plays where characters use phrases/make jokes and then are made to explain them. it makes for so many happy/awkward/delicious stage moments!

Rosalind then goes on to talk of all the exageration used in love and how no one dies of love, as much as they may say it.

But these are all lies: men have died from time to
time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

truth. love that line.

ROSALIND

Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us.
Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister?

ORLANDO

Pray thee, marry us.

CELIA

I cannot say the words.

Wondering WHY Celia feels she cannot say the words? It would have been very confusing whether the actors would then be married as the words of the wedding vows held THAT MUCH WEIGHT. for more consideration of this, I once again refer you to a post on Tony's blog

ORLANDO

O, but she is wise.

ROSALIND

Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the wiser, the waywarder: make the doors upon a woman's wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.

Rosalind's last line there was displayed in my English teacher's classroom senior year at our all girl's school. I LOVE the line itself but didn't realize some of the negative connotations with it or the disturbing/horrible thigns rosalind says thereafter. which is why I love it when Celia says after:

CELIA

You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate: we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your head, and show the world what the bird hath done to her own nest.

How does it change a scene when the sexism is challenged? and when it is both said and challenged by the same gender? going to be musing on that one and curious to see the next time it is staged what impact that has/how they stage those moments/how Celia reacts in that moment vs. when Orlando leaves.

Of course, rosalind blames cupid (with a lovely description of that whole idea) and Celia is still having none of it. Her response absolutely tickles me.

ROSALIND

No, that same wicked bastard of Venus that was begot of thought, conceived of spleen and born of madness, that blind rascally boy that abuses every one's eyes because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I am in love. I'll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando: I'll go find a shadow and sigh till he come.

CELIA

And I'll sleep.

4.2

Jaques and the forester have killed a deer and Jaques wants to sing about it. I'm telling you, AYLI is practically a musical... anyone have favorite musical arrangements of these songs? because its harder than you'd think to find clips of them and in their absence, I give you one of the Shakespeare at Winedales interlude songs from when they did AYLI. (EDIT: when I wrote this I found that clip on youtube no problem, but now whe I search within the blogger website it won't let me find it. so instead I give you to cuckoo song!! which I promise is just as marvelous if not more so...)

4.3

Orlando is late again and Rosalind is not happy. Silvius enters with Phoebe's letter and continues to charm the heck out of me: 

It bears an angry tenor: pardon me:
I am but as a guiltless messenger.

Rosalind plays some sort of mind game with Silvius and even though the letter praises Ganymede she makes it sound like it is full of insults.

ROSALIND

Patience herself would startle at this letter
And play the swaggerer; bear this, bear all:
She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;
She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,
Were man as rare as phoenix. '

later the letter is described thus, and I like the effect of saying this absolute about women that has already been proved untrue...

women's gentle brain
Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention

Finally she uses some ANTHIMERIA at its finest. (my FAVORITE rhetorical device.)

She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes.

After Silvius leaves, we get Oliver's entrance and the description of Orlando saving him/ explaining Orlando's absence:

But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,
And nature, stronger than his just occasion,
Made him give battle to the lioness,
Who quickly fell before him: in which hurtling
From miserable slumber I awaked.

We find out that Orlando was hurt and when his brother was tending to his wound all of Orlando's thoughts were on Rosalind. It's really incredible (in a good or bad way depends on your theatrical inclination I suppose) that Oliver's transformation reconciliation with Orlando is so fast! and so complete! He's incredibly repentant and this of course has opened him up to receiving love. meanwhile, Rosalind faints and then feels the need to justify it/ keep up her man facade:

OLIVER

Be of good cheer, youth: you a man! you lack a man's heart.

ROSALIND

I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would think this was well counterfeited! I pray you, tell your brother how well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho!

OK, that's act 4. sorry for the rush dear readers. Looking forward to luxuriating in more blogging time soon.