AYLI Act 5

5.1

A very short scene. We're back to touchstone and Audrey. we find out that Audrey may or may not have been involved with Wililam. William shows up and agrees that he loves audrey/intends to marry her, yet, by first look at the script, it seems that as soon as Touchstone says he's going to marry Audrey instead he's like whatever... cool. i'll go. no bother. I guess there's a lot of interesting things you can do with the staging/touchstone's threats/etc. 

5.2

Oliver and Orlando are having bromance times and discussing how fast Oliver fell in love with Celia and how they would like to marry... TOMORROW. 

Then Rosalind enters and has one of her most famous lines that may be overused but I couldn't care less it is still lovely. 

no sooner met but they looked, no sooner looked but they loved, no sooner loved but they sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason, no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage

Dan claims this kind of love for me, that he knew as soon as he saw me. It took me a little longer to fall quite that hard, but longevity and intensity make up for a late start, right?

 they are in the very wrath of love and they will together; clubs cannot part them.

This always makes me laugh. because who is going to come into the FOREST OF ARDEN with clubs against lovers? silly Rosalind, those are courtly worries. Orlando's response to the impending nuptials?

O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes! By so much the more shall I to-morrow be at the height of heart-heaviness

I can get behind Orlando's mixed feelings of joy and sorrow. It has to be rough to be at your brother's wedding while you are still pining for someone else. When "Rosalind" (who, as we know, is ACTUALLY Rosalind bu he doesn't of course) tries to comfort Orlando and tries to have him keep up the game of pretending, Orlando has possibly my FAVORITE line in the play:

I can live no longer by thinking.

I think that is going on my life mantras list. How has that not made its way to about a thousand Pinterest boards?! And then we have this gem of a scene/ some really lovely observations on love. I've skipped some of the and I for... parallelism so we could get to the meat of Silvius' lines, but the structure is certainly fun for actors to play with/ funny for the audience to hear repeated. (Those of you who know Zac Hoogendyk should pester him about the really wonderful scene he wrote based on this structure. Highly recommended and I'm sad i did not get to see it performed.)

PHEBE

Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.

SILVIUS

It is to be all made of sighs and tears;
And so am I for Phebe.

PHEBE

And I for Ganymede.

ORLANDO

And I for Rosalind.

ROSALIND

And I for no woman.

...

SILVIUS

It is to be all made of faith and service;

It is to be all made of fantasy,
All made of passion and all made of wishes,
All adoration, duty, and observance,
All humbleness, all patience and impatience,
All purity, all trial, all observance;

Can anyone argue with that? and then Rosalind sets up ALL the chess pieces for the final scene (I think its funny that this online editions specifies who it is to in the stage directions. i know some don't and it seems intuitive...)

To SILVIUS

I will help you, if I can:

To PHEBE

I would love you, if I could. To-morrow meet me all together.

To PHEBE

I will marry you, if ever I marry woman, and I'll be married to-morrow:

To ORLANDO

I will satisfy you, if ever I satisfied man, and you shall be married to-morrow:

To SILVIUS

I will content you, if what pleases you contents you, and you shall be married to-morrow.

5.3

EVERYONE IS GETTING MARRIED TOMORROW! including touchtstone and audrey.

The rest of the scene is mostly taken up by ANOTHER SONG. but this is perhaps my favorite as you like it song:

In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring.

If you are doing shakespeare by seasons AYLI definitely goes in the spring (let's see, then we have midsummer, winter's tale... any suggestions for Fall?! my gut says Richard II but I'm wondering if there's a more obvious choice?)

Then Touchstone gets in a couple more fool jabs to end the scene:

TOUCHSTONE

Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untuneable.

First Page

You are deceived, sir: we kept time, we lost not our time.

TOUCHSTONE

By my troth, yes; I count it but time lost to hear such a foolish song. 

5.4

The FINALE! Everyone is going to get married. It's the most comedic comedy ever if we are going by wedding counts. There's this classic moment of the audience saying DUH to the characters that will be perfected in Winter's Tale:

DUKE SENIOR

I do remember in this shepherd boy
Some lively touches of my daughter's favour.ORLANDO

My lord, the first time that I ever saw him
Methought he was a brother to your daughter:

OF COURSE YOU DID BECAUSE IT IS DUKE SENIOR'S DAUGHTER. oh man... and yet I smile every time...Jaques is with me on the absurd number of marriages going on in the Forest of Arden (I believe there's an Importance of Being Ernest line that would also work here... but let's stick with jaques)

There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples are coming to the ark. 

I'm going to skip over this last bit of fooling/ very long joke set up/etc. and although I am ignoring the touchstone seventh cause monologue I hope you all don't think I don't like it, just my reactions to it are not really any different from before I was married and I don't have particularly passionate feelings to share about that moment... because how can we dwell on that when the overly complicated resolution is coming?! SO.... there's really NO REASON why Rosalind couldn't just show up with Celia, both of them dressed in their regular clothes for the big reveal/marriages/happy endings. But does she do that? NO, SOMEHOW, she hooks everybody up with THE GOD OF MARRIAGE CEREMONIES:

Enter HYMEN, ROSALIND, and CELIA
Still Music

HYMEN

Then is there mirth in heaven,
When earthly things made even
Atone together.
Good duke, receive thy daughter
Hymen from heaven brought her,
Yea, brought her hither,
That thou mightst join her hand with his
Whose heart within his bosom is.

HOW DO YOU STAGE THIS MOMENT?! how do you costume/makeup/ position this character? etc. Please let me know some of your favorites for how this was done. I found this gem from a university in Michigan/ a quick google search- that looks like some RAD puppetry.

From here, surprise surprise, Hymen sings another:

SONG.
Wedding is great Juno's crown:
O blessed bond of board and bed!
'Tis Hymen peoples every town;
High wedlock then be honoured:
Honour, high honour and renown,
To Hymen, god of every town!

After this song in comes a messenger, another Jaques- why he has the same name no one knows... and this is what he has to say about the other Duke:

meeting with an old religious man,
After some question with him, was converted
Both from his enterprise and from the world,
His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother,
And all their lands restored to them again
That were with him exiled. This to be true,
I do engage my life.

And how does everyone onstage react to this serious/ dramatic/slightly insane news? Well, they take their cue from the Duke:

Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity
And fall into our rustic revelry.
Play, music! And you, brides and bridegrooms all,
With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall.

WHAT?! SERIOUSLY?! that is your reaction? Thank god at least Jaques wants to stop the music and have a moment (though I'd like to stage it where that is the general feeling but it's the duke saying forget it so what can they do...)

Jaques explains:

I am for other than for dancing measures.

Jaques then says he will follow the other duke/ continue with his melancholy, etc. I think he's too depressed to be at a wedding. Especially a wedding with this many people getting married all at once. He probably has the heart heaviness that Orlando thought he'd have. Duke Senior tries to stop him then when he sees its a lost cause says:

Proceed, proceed: we will begin these rites,
As we do trust they'll end, in true delights.A dance

And with all that music we end the official play leaving us with:

THE EPILOGUE:

 What a case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play!

This line always makes me wonder what makes a play good or bad and if this is simply an applause tactic/false modest, or if Shakespeare really did not think it was a good play but perhaps a really wonderful play anyway?

If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.

There's much to be said on the gender games of this- especially now that most Rosalinds are played by women. But you could claim that no one could please her except her Orlando and then she does not have to worry about the audience kissing offers... but still, something is lost when we don't have a young boy playing this role... Speaking of, I'm looking forward to reading Jessica Scheirmeister's thesis on youth in petticoats next week so I will probably have edits/more thoughts after reading that.

That's As You lIke it! Next up: MEASURE FOR MEASURE!! nothing like a problem play- nuns, blackmail, and REFUSALS TO DIE!!!