Interview with Dr. Mechele Leon: As You Like It

exiled royals false identities at her radical dupe a forest setting it's as you like it by william shakespeare i'm j mcintyre for the rest of this hour we'll hear from professor michelle lee and she's the director of as you like it at the university of kansas university theater next tuesday a professionally on how i play it's great to be here for those us who haven't read as you like it in a while or perhaps haven't read it at all you can read a synopsis of the plot what to expect well i think what you just don't know the words you use to really just describe it pretty well this is our one of shakespeare's favorite comedies but plot is very simple in a way to follow it takes place in two locations so there is the world of this dude fredrick ruis at tyre radical usurp or has taken away his brothers are claiming too to power and all his wealth and has banished him exiled him and his brother

this other brother and has banished brothers in the forest of arden so that's a second occasion takes place between these two worlds wealth basically concerns rosalyn the niece of two frederick and she's been banished her to the forest as well she's been banished and takes to the forest with the duke's daughter and having fallen level of orlando who also takes to the forest of art so you know into the woods the music store so this is shakespeare's version of into the woods and it's inside the words and are in a similar way that is to say once in the woods things happen bad things happened between rosalind and her love orlando the chicken story is that when rosalind goes to the woods in order to protect herself she dresses as a man and when she meets orlando there rather than say orlando here i am edt here i am

underneath my costume know she's and we're underneath my disguise i should say it but she doesn't do that instead she convinces him that he should practice his wooing of rosalind on her but of course now it's not her it's a him and that sets up a coyote a kind of reggae and that really becomes the plot so to the extent that this just plain doesn't have a up a plot so much as it has a circumstance that sets people off on a journey through that journey they get to experience well the things they get to try on the personalities and especially it's a story of you could say of rustlers a certain kind of liberation for rosalind as she moves through and into her love with orlando from the listeners who may have seen as you like it in another production what's so special about this one well there are a couple of

things i would say first of all if you a study the script very well you will notice that i had cut a fair amount now this is not this is not unusual is very typical for shakespeare if course i'm very long play is like family you might expect someone to cut by hand you know it's very typical to cut for different reasons one is sound i just the length and we don't have the patience to sit through five acts are and three plus hours of shakespeare and a friend of mine says you know people never complained shakespeare's too short never ever hear about so i come for that and i also altered it a bit for characters and especially to enhance the number of roles that i could give women in it so why was reassigned roles and changed it that way of the most significant changes that i had moved the time period for the play so when you think about what you can do with shakespeare you can play shakespeare in the ob

its original setting of the time period which was written that is to say what would be a class girl elizabeth in productions i would say most of the productions that we have done at the university theater are those we do that we haven't which has an interesting interpretations of moving into time periods we did twelfth night in a new orleans storyville and we did we've we've done some unusual ones so with this plan made them rather bold choice i have to set it in the nineteen thirties and fascist hero and i did that because to me i was very concerned with it began with who was this character duke frederick but sports apart his relationship with his brother the relationships of other brothers who has vanished his knees forced his daughter to two to a runoff who is this

tyrant who is this use or burn and when i thought about it i felt that that there was a resonance and relevance in moving into the internet into a kind of fascist it well into a fascist context so i would say that if you're going to place shakespeare in another time and place which i have no problem doing in many many directors do that common many productions do it i am i you want one that's meaningful he won't win that have something to say and i was interested in anger and heat and when i started thinking about that and i started to think about what that means to us today and how that story could say something to us today that's why the thirties part out and that's what's going to make most difference so it's so whenever you know shakespeare into another time and place you know has been working with having to trust audiences to understand

a kind of conflict between the language the hearing and the time and the place that they're seeing you take great examples of doing that for example the film with ed mcclellan which they placed richard the third in our man in a similar fascist environment and the text as an adult this context for me was not only about emphasizing the court that if they would naturally lead me to the question of what does it mean then to think about what the forest means and fascinating in fascinating ways there are examples in fascist europe for example of people who've managed to escape it so for example by escaping to the forest and surviving so i felt i really wanted to be sure that if i was going down this road but there was something about it that really didn't make sense now the saw the other side of that is that doesn't sound much like the comedy

does not know tonight i would emphasize the comedy is still there and i think what this does is that it puts it in it i tried to put it into a certain context in order to say something about what these people experienced people in the far says they live in as the changing as they grow and as they encounter each other and as they get to their foibles and their stories in their love affairs and they're white what does that place represent for us and it should be a place of joy is a place filled with music we have five original songs and thereby ryan call home is i've been out is a staff musical director for the theater and dance department and he's also we're a composer and has written some original tunes but we also mix it up with our with a fabulous music from the nineteen thirties and there's a way in which the story still comes through it's just changing the context for it especially setting up

the urgency of the need to escape this do they need to or the way that that the duke his force then this community this this community this special group into exile yet so it's a gamble that these kinds of things always are famously private think of productions like at the public theatre the new york shakespeare festival auspicious tested julius caesar a two thousand and seventeen in the way that riled a lot of people or some people and you know i think that we take these chances and even on hbo and see in as you like it by kenneth branagh that he said in nineteenth century imperial japan my own take on that is why so am i i don't i wouldn't say that i really i don't deserve innovative as over the move more creative genius of braddock that i do think that if you are going to place a

good it would be helpful to have a very good idea why if you get a move shakespearean why do you where does a matter and i think there's probably nothing more important right now today and to think about what it means to live under a tyrant we've perhaps anticipated my next question as you like it was written five hundred years ago how this is still speak to us today and there's two ways to think about that one is that there's a timelessness about shakespeare that the enjoyment of the english language the company said the charm of the poetry to the cleverness of the characters that these are timeless quality is the other of the other argument about why shakespeare's dylan you're in this is that sense that the fundamental human messages that and meanings of experience and life and thought that we have

still resonate engine we can take that we can take those stories and to the present so i think when you ask why does it matter for me it matters for both of those reasons because i think the art is beautiful and i think that there are still experiences that with a little bit of a reminder of why what we're looking out and may be saying okay vis reference might shari winton well or bring audiences to have better on to a more immediate understanding of what it that of a friend who does duca is what this world is it so it's help but say it's a helper in a way it's not replacing shakespeare gets a helper that says let's remember that this story is not that said in the late nineteen seventies europe just for many younger audience members is as distant as elizabeth in england might as well be

for the house of us to perhaps think look you're probably thinking more are older they get more historically it seems like yesterday you are not quite maybe so i even that i mean i think that there's this different ways we can think about time and the thing with professor michelle lee and she's the director of as you like it which is playing at the university theater at university of kansas professor liane what kind of challenges do you face in directing young people of the best performances mostly students i would assume what challenges does that face in free shakespeare to students in this day in age oh that's a great question you know i think any spot of the fabulous students are in the production how would we agreed that this is definitely been a kind of bomb learning experience i think i described to them like drinking out of the russian fire hydrant and so it is very challenging and

luckily they have a great they're fortunate i think to have a great team and i'm i feel into certain extent there might be the least of that team they have a we have a tick we have a text coach vocal coach on the production of visiting assistant professor named santiago so suck out or we have and he has an assistant as well i will to faculty members so to faculty members actually onstage with them in the production on that and i think that is excellent for modeling and so it's challenging today there's no doubt there's challenges in terms of and reading the text understanding the situation learning about the language understand in the poetry even all these little tricks that you have to pay attention to with shakespeare well can look for think about the missing word that it's in their think about their way that there's a un seven stretchers reverse once you sort of get the tricks it becomes easier to read but we often have recourse to paraphrase versions in order to try to understand

what's being what's being said and speaking the language really difficult it is vocally difficult energy that's necessary to perform and it's hard for me to do i would i hadn't and they're not really sure how i could judge if it's more difficult today than it was i was their age or well or slightly older when i spent two years on the road doing shakespeare call of the united states with a touring company you know i remember the challenges are significant did we have you know was it any easier for us and not so sure i mean i i i remember struggling are trying to figure out how to interpret the places working with a vocal coach working with a working with a voice coach and i did a lot of work to do to be on the road so i think it's it's not that there's an accessibility at success ability for the audience is well it's a leap of faith that we go and yearning to hear it end pleased with the

experience of catching such beautiful language and n sometimes language that is just so plain socks you right between the eyes so you know i think it's significant lee hard hat presents really hard work for her students but i think it's totally worth the effort speaking of the language one of my favorite things about seeing shakespeare are reading shakespeare is the discovery that so many familiar phrases that we use have their origins in seeks beer to some of the ones that trace their roots to as you like it well you know give away here come all the world's a stage all the men and women merely players they have their engines is in their accents and then there's a wonderful line manned aircraft whoever love that love not at first sight those are just two i think all planes have those little treasures in

the mirror i you said about the forest because the light shakespeare the forest is a place of enchantment is that the case in as you like it that's an interesting question because when i think of very i think of enchantment for example like midsummer night's dream there's a magical elements and are you a simple request and i would actually say that this is a very earthy forest i feel like it's very very they even though our set is very abstract we don't offer a minute we don't offer are taking their cues from the nineteen thirties we don't offer representation of the forest i think is very risky place in many ways there's a lot of falling in love it's very calm no magic creatures to speak of it i do have a surprise in the forest or martin the vault but there he had is am i think it's a place where very practically people are forced

i ought to come come together and she was the clue for that as i think about it and in academe in the forests like a midsummer night's dream there's nowhere for you know there's no there's no storms is no whether you know it's a magical place that fairies thereafter where the prevailing cuts but in that as you like it all the references when they moved into the far east in the beginning are about the bitter wind and the cold out we are taking to understand and this has to do with historical circumstances of the very first time the play was probably performed in february i am indebted it has this it has this it just offends there's a real fence this climate there's a sense of this place as having and yet they talk about their joy there in spite of the weather so it's very earthy it's a very very present plays even

years historically when you think about the play anything about him what was shakespeare thinking of unwary is this far as dividing the differing interpretations of the way of the place said in france but then it's also an english farce it's modeled blighted that's true in shakespeare in general the places in our own time and place can get looking really going to get mixed up mashed up modeled on that but it definitely feels like a place we can we find out more information about as you like it and our website so that's canny theater dot com and that's a theater with an artery such a theater dot com and there's information about the performances i have tickets and on and information about more information about the cast i will add that we also have two choreographers from the dance department involved in our production we have to dance isn't it once been done by professor patrick says so and another is done was choreographed

by professor gero helping so this has been a great way for us to celebrate the relatively recent merging of theater and dance of tea and wonderful i don't agree with professor michelle lee and she's the director of as you like it which is opening this week at university theater at the university of kansas thank you so much for coming in today it's been a pleasure kate thank you as you like it opens a craft and prior theater in murphy hall at the university of kansas on friday february twenty first and runs through sunday march first to get information is online at key theater dot com i'm j mcintyre keep your present it's a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas says but if you missed last week's conversation with composer and lyrically though it's tiny silver streak more of my conversation with aubrey coleman of the dole institute of politics earlier this month

they're now archived our website kansas public radio dot org and there you can find mostly pr presents programs and listen to them anytime day or night that say kansas public radio dot org and thanks for listening