The original Shakespearean comedy with a parabolic twist
The Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival Professional Company performed a rendition of Shakespeare’s As You Like It at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center (DPAC), running from August 20 to September 1. The production sparked lively conversation because of its artistic departures from Shakespeare’s classic comedy. These changes—most notably a reworked epilogue and the inversion of key characters’ genders—provoked a range of responses from the audience, with some applauding the creativity and others questioning the deviation from tradition.
Sara Holdren, director of the production, told the Rover that her rendition intended to ask: “What is it like when we remove ourselves from these [socio-political] factors? We’re outside of the question of productivity, we’re outside of the question of how we usually use our time, the sort of pressures of the world.” For her, playmaking “… is a society building experiment [where] you’re creating a social contract … [the] practice for how we live together in the world.”
In the original Shakespearean epilogue, Rosalind “charge[s]” each gender, for their love of the other gender, “to like as much of this play as / please you.” In Holdren’s rendition, Rosalind still delivers the epilogue, but modifies it to be a speech about the fantasy of a world where “we will march forward together, but not one before the other.”
Audience members had mixed opinions on the congruency of the epilogue with the original text. “It didn’t necessarily match the show’s theme,” noted sophomore Nick Anderson, “but it was incredibly entertaining and provided a moment to pause and reflect.”
One junior attendee noted that, despite his general enjoyment of the show, “The epilogue seemed to detract from the actors’ talent, placing an agenda at the hallmark of the show that superseded the spirit the play was intended.”
The inversion of gender roles was another artistic inversion in Holdren’s presentation of the Shakespeare play. Oliver, typically Orlando’s brother, was played as a sister, while Audrey, traditionally a female role, was portrayed by a male actor.
Anderson, who had previously acted in an adaptation of the play, said this decision brought “nice variety” and created “an interesting dynamic between Orlando and Oliver.” Another attendee found it “tasteful,” adding that “no blaring agenda was evident.”
For Holdren, the play was a vehicle of fantasy to turn the view of the audience outwards. In the digital program for the play, she writes, “… [W]e find ourselves sincerely considering the question at the heart of fantasy: What if things were different?”
In her vision, the Forest of Arden, a backdrop which dominated the second half of the play, is “a making space, a collective of artists and questing souls, an off-grid social experiment—it is, in short, the theater itself.” By representing Arden as a space rife with content, such as a sign in French which read, “Continue the fight capitalism is sinking,” and the visage of a Palestinian woman, she claims, “Shakespeare’s characters [are able] to discover who they might truly be and how they might reshape their society with more imagination, more joy, more thought for care than for control.”
This view was not altogether well received. One junior of O’Neill Family Hall saw it within the context of Notre Dame’s struggle between its Catholic identity and its commitment to academic freedom: “I found Holdren’s rendition to celebrate a topic not standing within the tenets of the [Catholic] Church. It is once again a battle between Notre Dame’s sense as both a Catholic and academic institution.”
In the spring semester of 2023, Notre Dame’s production of Hamlet generated controversy by casting Hamlet as a woman and transforming Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia into a lesbian romance. One viewer commented that the homosexual relationship felt “very forced,” whilst another viewer condemned such a relationship being shown at Notre Dame, noting, “At a Catholic university we should be expected to be in line with the precepts of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”
Holdren’s interpretation also raised larger questions about the role of directors in adapting classic works, according to several viewers. Some audience members appreciated the fresh perspective, arguing that directors should be free to reinterpret art. “A director’s vision is important,” said Father Paul Kollman, C.S.C., associate professor of theology at Notre Dame. “You can’t please everyone, and the goal of art isn’t to meet everyone’s expectations.”
On the other hand, some critics felt that Holdren’s changes took too many liberties, altering the core of Shakespeare’s play. One junior in Farley Hall commented that “Shakespeare cannot be timeless if you impose the ideology of the present moment upon it.”
The Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival Professional Company’s next performance on campus will be Twelfth Night, running from October 30 to November 1.
Rafael Llull is a junior in the Program of Liberal Studies. When he is walking to class with his friends, he often needs to quote Acts 2:15 to the unamused passersby. If you wish to participate in his antics, be sure to email him at rllull@nd.edu.
Photo Credit: Shakespeare.nd.edu
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