As You Like It

[veradee]

When I first came across Alan Rickman's essay about playing Jaques in As You Like It, I thought it was interesting to see how an actor approaches and interprets a character, but I also had to realise that, because I wasn't familiar with the play, I had only a vague idea what he was actually talking about. I comforted myself with the thought that

Comments

[veradee]

I really like AR's essay, and it seems that he really gave Jaques and the play a lot of thought. I just wish I'd know more about the play myself.

Your photos seem to indicate that they took a few liberties as well - at least with the setting and the costumes. That I don't mind, though, but I'm often at a loss when the text is changed / modernised, which is something that German directors love to do.

[me_pirateship]

Thanks - I hadn't read his essay yet!

[veradee]

Are you familiar with the play?

[me_pirateship]

Not so much - at university I only studied Shakespeare as regards his influence on our "Sturm und Drang". (I roughly know the synopsis of "As you like it", though, but I've neither read nor watched the play. I should do so, I suppose. I wonder whether there's a recording of the play with Alan as Jaques at the Theatre Museum - at the V&A, that is...)

[veradee]

I did quite a lot of Shakespeare at uni, but AYLI wasn't among the plays. I only recently had a look at the V&A website again and can't remember seeing any info about a recording. It certainly would be interesting to watch it, though.

[hobgoblinn]

Hey,

I usually post a comment on the most recent post, but I had to also thank you for scanning in this excellent essay. It's been a while since I read As You Like It, but I was able to follow most of it, and Alan's insights were neat.

At any rate, I noticed your comment on there_n_back and have spent way too long after I should have gone to bed perusing your journal. I see that you, also, struggled with DH and how to write Snape afterwards. For me, I didn't write him until after DH, and before I truly had wrapped my mind around the problems raised in the last book.

I look forward to getting to know you better, and I invite you to drop by and see what I'm about if you like. My most recent post contains the response to juno_magic's questions.

[veradee]

Hi, welcome to my LJ. It's the first time someone tells me it kept them from going to bed. I'm flattered. ;)

I wonder whether it's slightly easier to write Snape if one didn't write him before DH. My take on him changed quite a bit after having read the last book, which lets me struggle with him now, and it doesn't help that I prefer canon-compliant fics over AU ones.

I'll certainly pop over to your LJ.

[hobgoblinn]

I also prefer canon compliance, even in AU fic (in the sense that the character is consistent with canon, even if different situations and choices present themselves in the AU). In my postmortem to Lost Boys, I talked about this a little:

Another important aspect of the story is choices. I wrote a response to DH in which I said if Snape had no choices, he couldn’t possibly be said to be brave. I try to work that out here very explicitly. I think it’s beyond sad that as fragmented as Snape’s memories are, he retains the unshakeable belief that whatever good or brave things he did in life, he had “no choice.” The water’s murky there in canon, but this Harry proves to him he does indeed have a choice-- by giving him another one, when all that history has been stripped away. I can’t say if JKR’s Snape would react similarly, but as I was puzzling over Snape’s character, and why he does what he does, I eventually realized I had to choose what kind of character I wanted to spend time with. I came down on the side of one flawed and bitter

[veradee]

I should have differentiated a bit. Of course, I read AU fics, but as you say I prefer it if I still recognise the character I know from canon. Of course, we all extrapolate from canon and come to our own conclusions what the characters are like and how they would react in certain situations, but I prefer fics that aren't too outrageous - with the exception of parodies.

And if Snape suddenly works as an agony aunt, or if Hermione is a very gifted piano player, calligraphist and enthusiastic philatelist, or if someone moved to Alaska, I'd like some explanation. The same goes for resurrected characters.

At the moment I'm rather occupied with reading at the sshg_exchange. It offers a nice variety of all kinds of SS/HG fics.