PBS Wisconsin Music & Arts

Announcer

Funding for APT's "Out of the Woods" is provided by Boardman Clark Law Firm, Arcadia Books, Dane Arts, Nancy A. McDaniel, Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, Orange Tree Imports, Wilson Creek Pottery, Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming, and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

whippoorwills singing

crickets chirping

Announcer

classical trumpet music

Announcer

discordant piano notes

Announcer

This cannot be right.

exasperated sigh

Announcer

Did I-- Am I, am I? Okay...

shaking sound

Announcer

strumming harp

Announcer

Uh, can you tell me if the lens is scratched or is that my glasses?

overlapping voices, audio cutting out

Announcer

-

man does vocal warm-up

Announcer

I love my kids, I love my kids, I love my kids, I love...

overlapping voices

Man

Hey, Jimmy!

man does throat exercise

Man

Jimmy, you frozen? Places! I'm here, I'm here, coming! Places, everyone! This is places.

playful, expectant keyboard music

Man

Oh, hey, what's up Marcus? How ya doing? Good luck, everybody!

birds warbling, crickets chirping

Man

bird chirping

Brenda DeVita

Hello, everybody, we're all here now. Welcome to live Zoom theater! Thank you for bearing with us. This is-- we are not quite experts yet at this. We've done this one time before so we can't say, "We've never done it before." But we started last week with our first reading in a series of six, and tonight's our second reading of the "Out of the Woods" series. So, thank you for joining us and thanks to everyone who's rejoining us tonight. I want to do a shout out because we've heard from all kinds of people all over the country that they were with us last week and they are here tonight and I want to say 'hi' to everyone and especially to Jennifer Lang in Madrid, who, I know, got up and poured herself a bourbon in the middle of the night to watch with us. So, I promise it will be worth your time of getting out of bed. We are so excited because if you didn't see last week, you'll be able to see it because when we recorded it last week, Wisconsin-- PBS Wisconsin has agreed to put these online and stream them on their website online so you will be able to see this series online. We'll start that in early June and more details to come, but thank you, PBS Wisconsin. We appreciate it! There's a few 'thank-you's I need to have-- make tonight. This idea came up a couple of weeks ago, and the staff at APT just jumped in, like they always do. And I need to say they're the best in the world and they say 'yes' all the time. So, thank you to them. They got you all here today. And thank you to our backstage crew, Jacki Singleton and Evelyn Matten. WHEW! Got through that one. Thank you, guys. You guys are doing a great job. Jake Penner and Carey Cannon, the artistic team. Thank you, guys, for always being there and working so diligently to make things great. I also need to say thank you to Christopher Corkery and Jack Whaley. Hi, Jack, it's your birthday! Happy birthday, Jack! They created the video that you all saw, the opening video. They did that for us for free on their own time and thank you. They're just geniuses, and we are so grateful. It's really important that I take a moment to thank that people who have stuck with us through thick and thin, who are such incredible stewards of APT, and all the changes of our season. They're still here with us. It's our season sponsors, and I am honored to say that they're-- to know them is to love them. They're wonderful humans besides being incredibly generous. Steve and Laurel Brown Foundation, Doug and Sherry Caves, JJJ Productions, Kasieta Legal Group, Sherry and Rick Lundell, Ann and Fred Moore, Nelson-Jameson, Allison and Dale Smith, Steve Brown Apartments, the Mr. and Mrs. C.J. Williams Storage Foundation, and U.S. Bank. Thank you. And last but not least, I want to thank the artists; The artists who are perfectionists, who don't think they're good enough, which makes them the greatest artists on earth because they're brilliant and they don't let themselves think that every day, which I thoroughly appreciate. John Lang's our director who jumped in and said, "Yes, I'll do this Shakespeare online. What is this? How do we do it?"

His team

Eva Brenneman, as text coach and Joe Cerqua is the wonderful composer of tonight's music and last, but not least, the core company and the actors. I know you all know them from stage, and some of them, you know them personally but they are the hardest-working group of humans that I know that work in the theater and they are so good at their jobs, they make it look so easy. And this reading is not easy. It's very, very nerve-racking and I want to thank them for, like I said, "throwing caution to the wind and bravely doing their jobs," which is to share with you with their whole hearts this story. So, before further ado, special guest star Elise Dickerson as 'Sylia.' Thank you, as well. We want to say, enjoy tonight's performance! Oh, not performance. It is a reading of "As You Like It."

loud, agitated sighing

growls, grunts, pounds on door

ADAM

Ah, my young master, Orlando!

ORLANDO

As I remember, Adam, it was bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and charged my brother on his blessing to breed me well; and there begins my sadness. My brother Jacques he keeps at school and report speaks goldenly of his profit. For my part, he keeps me rustically at home or, to speak more perfectly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you that keeping, for a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the stalling of an ox?

ADAM

Orlando!

Orlando scoffs

ORLANDO

His horses are bred better, for besides that they are fair with their feeding, they are taught their manage and to that end riders dearly hired; but I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth, and the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude.

OLIVER

Now, sir, what make you here?

ORLANDO

Nothing, brother. I am not taught to make anything.

OLIVER

What mar you then, sir?

ORLANDO

Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.

OLIVER

Marry sir, be better employed.

ORLANDO

Shall I keep your hogs and eat husks with them? What prodigal portion have I spent that I should come to such penury?

OLIVER

Know you where you are, sir?

ORLANDO

O, sir,

very well

here in your orchard.

OLIVER

Know you before whom, sir?

ORLANDO

Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know you are my eldest brother, and in the gentle condition of blood you should so know me. The courtesy of nations allows you my better in that you are the first-born, but the same tradition takes not away my blood, were there twenty brothers betwixt us.

grunts, moves forcefully

OLIVER

What, boy! Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?

ORLANDO

I am no villain. I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys; he was my father, and he is thrice a villain that says such a father begot villains. Wert thou not my brother I would not take this hand from thy throat till this other had pulled out thy tongue

for saying so. - OLIVER

Let me go!

grunting in physical struggle

I will not till I please

You shall hear me. My father charged you in his will to give me good education. You have trained me like a peasant, obscuring and hiding from me all gentleman-like qualities, and I will no longer endure it!

Oliver groans

I will not till I please

Therefore give me such good education as may become my, my, become a gentleman, or give me the poor allottery my father left me by testament; with that I will go buy my fortunes.

Oliver groans, catches breath

OLIVER

And what wilt thou do? Beg when that is spent? Well, sir, get you in. I will not long be troubled with you; you shall have some part of your will. Get you with him, you old dog.

ADAM

Is 'old dog' my reward? Most true, I have lost my teeth in your service. God be with my old master, he would not have spoke such a word.

OLIVER

Is it even so? Begin you to grow upon me? I will physic your rankness, and yet give no thousand crowns neither. Was not Charles, the Duke's wrestler, here to speak with me? 'Twill be a good way, and tomorrow the wrestling is. Good Monsieur, Charles, What's the new news at the new court? -

Charles laughs

OLIVER

There's no news at the court, sir,

but the old news

that is, the old Duke is banished by his younger brother, the new Duke, and three or four loving lords have put themselves into voluntary exile with him, whose lands and revenues enrich the new Duke; therefore he gives them good leave to wander.

OLIVER

Where will the old Duke live?

CHARLES

They say he is already in the Forest of Arden and a many merry men with him, and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England.

OLIVER

What, you wrestle tomorrow before the new Duke?

CHARLES

Marry, do I, sir; and I came to acquaint you with a matter. Now--

chuckles

CHARLES

I am given to understand that your younger brother, Orlando, hath a disposition to come against

dismissive laugh

CHARLES

me. Tomorrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit, and he that escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him well. Your younger brother is young, he's tender, therefore out of my love to you I came hither, that either you might stay him from his intendment or brook such disgrace well as he shall run into, in that it is a thing of his own search. It's altogether against my will.

OLIVER

Charles, I thank thee for thy love, which thou shalt find I will most kindly requite. I had myself notice of my brother's purpose and have labored to dissuade him from it; but I'll tell thee, Charles, it is the stubbornest young fellow, full of ambition, a secret and villainous contriver against me, his natural brother. Therefore use thy discretion; I had as lief thou didst break his neck as his finger. And thou wert best look to't; for if thou dost him any slight disgrace, he will practice against thee by poison, entrap thee by some treacherous device, and never leave thee till he hath ta'en thy life. For I assure thee and almost with tears I speak it there is not one so young and so villainous this day living.

scoffs

CHARLES

I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come tomorrow I'll give him his payment. If ever he go alone again, I'll never wrestle for prize more. God keep your worship.

chuckling

OLIVER

Charles, can you tell if Rosalind, the Duke's daughter, be banished with her father?

chuckling

CHARLES

O no; for the new Duke's daughter, Celia, her cousin, so loves her, that she would have followed Rosalind into exile or died to stay behind her.

whispering

CHARLES

She's at the court.

OLIVER

Farewell, good Charles.

CHARLES

Farewell, my Oliver.

OLIVER

I hope I shall see an end of Orlando; for my soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than he. Yet he's gentle, never schooled and yet learned, full of noble device, of all sorts enchantingly beloved, and indeed so much in the heart of the world, that I am altogether misprized. But it shall not be so long. This wrestler shall clear all. -

Celia sighs woefully

CELIA

I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.

ROSALIND

Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of, and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.

CELIA

Herein I see thou lov'st me not with the full weight that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy uncle, the Duke, my father, so thou hadst been still with me I could have taught my love to take thy father for mine.

ROSALIND

Well, I will forget the condition of my estate to rejoice in yours.

CELIA

You know my father hath no child but I, nor none is like to have, and truly when he dies thou shalt be his heir, for what he hath taken away from thy father perforce, I will render thee again in affection. By mine honor I will! Therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear sweet Rose, be merry.

ROSALIND

From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports.

Let me see

what think you of falling in love?

laughs

CELIA

Marry, I prithee do, to make sport withal but love no man in good earnest, no, therefore in sport neither.

ROSALIND

What shall be our sport then?

CELIA

Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.

ROSALIND

I would we could do so, for her benefits are mightily misplaced and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women.

laughs

CELIA

'Tis true, for those that she makes fair she scarce makes honest, and those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favouredly.

ROSALIND

Nay, now thou goest from Fortune's office to Nature's; Fortune reigns in gifts of the world not in the lineaments of Nature.

CELIA

No? When Nature hath made a fair creature may she not by Fortune be thrown into the fire? Though Nature hath given us wit to flout at Fortune, hath not Fortune sent in this fool to cut off the argument? How now, wit, whither wander you?

TOUCHSTONE

Mistress, you must come away to your father.

CELIA

Were you made the messenger?

TOUCHSTONE

No, by mine honor, but I was bid to come for you.

ROSALIND

Where learned you that oath, fool?

TOUCHSTONE

Of a certain knight who swore by his honor that the pancakes were good, and swore by his honor that the mustard was naught. Now I'll stand to it the mustard was good and the pancakes were naught, and yet was not this knight forsworn.

Celia laughs critically

CELIA

How prove you that in the great heap of your knowledge?

TOUCHSTONE

Stand you both forth. Stroke your chins and swear by your beards that I am a knave.

CELIA

By our beards--

If we had them-- - CELIA

Thou art.

TOUCHSTONE

By my knavery, if I had it, then I were. But if you swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn. And no more was this knight swearing by his honor, for he never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard.

CELIA

Prithee, who is't that thou mean'st?

TOUCHSTONE

One that old Frederick, your father, loves.

CELIA

My father's love is enough to honor him. Enough! Speak no more of him. You'll be whipped for taxation one of these days.

TOUCHSTONE

The more pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.

CELIA

By my troth, thou sayest true. For since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes a great show. Here comes Le Beau. Madame Le Beau, what's the news?

LE BEAU

Oh, fair princess, you have lost much good sport.

Touchstone gasps

CELIA

Sport? Of what colour?

LE BEAU

Of what colour, Madame? How shall I answer you?

ROSALIND

As wit and Fortune will.

TOUCHSTONE

Or as the Destinies decree.

CELIA

Well said! That was laid on with a trowel.

LE BEAU

You amaze me, ladies. I would have told you of good wrestling, which you have lost the sight of.

ROSALIND

Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling.

LE BEAU

I will tell you the beginning and you may see the end, for here they are coming to perform it.

CELIA

Well, the beginning that is dead and buried.

LE BEAU

There comes an old man and his three sons.

CELIA

I could match this beginning with an old tale.

LE BEAU

Three proper young men of excellent growth and presence. The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the Duke's wrestler, which Charles in a moment threw him and broke three of his ribs, that there is little hope of life in him. And so he served the second and so the third. Well yonder they lie, the poor old man their father making such pitiful dole over them that all the beholders take his part with weeping.

ROSALIND

Alas!

TOUCHSTONE

But what is the sport, Madame, that the ladies have lost?

LE BEAU

Why, this that I speak of.

TOUCHSTONE

Oh,

laughs self-consciously

TOUCHSTONE

thus men may grow wiser every day. It is the first time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport for ladies.

CELIA

Or I, I promise thee.

ROSALIND

But is there yet another dotes upon rib-breaking? Shall we see this wrestling, cousin?

LE BEAU

Well, you must if you stay here, for here is the place appointed for the wrestling and they are ready to perform it.

struggling to move

DUKE FREDERICK

Come on. Since the youth will not be entreated, his own peril on his forwardness.

ROSALIND

Is yonder the man?

LE BEAU

Even he, Madame.

CELIA

Alas, he is too young. Yet, he looks successfully.

DUKE FREDERICK

How now, daughter and cousin. Are you crept hither to see the wrestling?

ROSALIND

Ay, so please you give us leave.

DUKE FREDERICK

You will take little delight in it, I can tell you; there is such odds in the man. In pity of the challenger's youth I would fain dissuade him, but he will not be entreated. You speak to him, ladies; Maybe you can move him.

CELIA

Call him hither, good Madame Le Beau.

DUKE FREDERICK

Do so; I'll not be by.

LE BEAU

Monsieur the challenger, the princess calls for you.

stammers

ORLANDO

I attend them with all respect and duty.

ROSALIND

Young man, have you challenged Charles, the wrestler?

ORLANDO

No, fair princess. He is the general challenger. I come but in as others do, to try with him the strength of my youth.

CELIA

Young gentleman, you have seen cruel proof of this man's strength. We pray you embrace your own safety and give over this attempt.

ROSALIND

Do, young sir.

ORLANDO

I confess me much guilty to deny so fair and excellent ladies anything. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my trial; wherein if I be foiled, there is but one shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one dead that is willing to be so. No, I shall do my friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me; the world no injury, for in it I have nothing. Only in the world I fill up a place which may be better supplied when I have made it empty.

ROSALIND

The little strength that I have, I would it were with you.

CELIA

And mine to eke out hers.

ROSALIND

Fare you well.

CELIA

Your heart's desires be with you.

Celia laughs shyly

groans with exertion

CHARLES

Come, where is this young gallant that is so desirous to lie with his mother earth?

ORLANDO

Ready, sir, but his will hath in it a more modest working.

DUKE FREDERICK

You shall try but one fall.

CHARLES

I warrant your grace you shall not entreat him to a second that have so mightily persuaded him from a first.

ORLANDO

You mean to mock me after; you should not have mocked me before.

thunk

fumes with fury

fighting struggle, punch

enraged pummeling

CELIA

I would I were invisible, to catch the strong fellow by the leg.

wrestlers struggling

ROSALIND

Now Hercules be thy speed, young man!

men brawling loudly

ROSALIND

O excellent young man!

infuriated howling, Rosalind gasps

DUKE FREDERICK

No more, no more.

ORLANDO

Yes,

I beseech your grace

I am not yet well breathed.

DUKE FREDERICK

How dost thou, Charles?

LE BEAU

He cannot speak, my lord.

DUKE FREDERICK

Bear him away. What is thy name, young man?

ORLANDO

Orlando, the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys.

DUKE FREDERICK

I would thou hadst been son to some man else. The world esteemed thy father honourable, but I did find him still mine enemy. Shouldst have better pleased me with this deed Hadst thou descended from another house. But... fare thee well, thou art a gallant youth. I would thou hadst told me of another father.

CELIA

Were I my father, coz, would I do this?

ORLANDO

I am more proud to be Sir Rowland's son, his youngest son, and would not change that calling to be adopted heir to Frederick.

ROSALIND

My father loved Sir Rowland as his soul, And all the world was of my father's mind. Had I before known this young man, his son, I should have given him tears unto entreaties. Ere he should thus have ventured.

CELIA

Gentle cousin, let us go and thank him and encourage him. My father's rough and envious disposition Sticks me at heart. Sir, you have well deserved. If you do keep your promises in love But justly as you have exceeded all promise, Your mistress shall be happy.

ROSALIND

Gentleman, Wear this for me, one out of suits with fortune, That could give more but that her hand lacks means. Shall we go, coz?

CELIA

Ay. Fare you well, fair gentleman.

quick intake of breath

ORLANDO

Can I not say, I thank you?

moans in pain, laughs

ORLANDO

My better parts Are all thrown down, and that which here stands up Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block.

shouts 'Ahhh!' combatively

ROSALIND

He calls us back. My pride fell with my fortunes. I'll ask him what he would. Did you call, sir?

awkward non-verbal sounds

ROSALIND

Sir, you have wrestled well and overthrown More than your enemies.

CELIA

Will you go, coz?

false pleased tone

ROSALIND

Have with you. Fare you well.

Orlando laughs with surprised awkwardness

ORLANDO

God, what passion hangs these weights upon my tongue? I cannot speak to her, yet she urged conference. O poor Orlando, thou art overthrown! Or Charles or something weaker masters thee.

LE BEAU

Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you To leave this place, albeit you have deserved high commendation, true applause and love. Yet such is now the Duke's condition that he misconsters all that you have done.

ORLANDO

I thank you, Ma'am; and pray you,

tell me

Which of the two was daughter of the Duke That here was at the wrestling?

LE BEAU

Neither his daughter, if we judge by manners, But yet indeed the taller is his daughter. The other is daughter to the banished Duke, And here detained by her usurping uncle To keep his daughter company, whose loves Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters. But I can tell you that of late this Duke Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece, Grounded upon no other argument But that the people praise her for her virtues, And pity her for her good father's sake. Sir, fare you well. Hereafter in a better world than this I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.

ORLANDO

I rest much bounden to you; fare you well.

Orlando sighs

ORLANDO

Thus must I from the smoke unto the smother,

teeth clenched

ORLANDO

From tyrant Duke unto a tyrant brother. But heavenly, Rosalind!

laughs admiringly

sighs

CELIA

Why, cousin, why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy! Not a word?

ROSALIND

Not one to throw at a dog.

laughs

CELIA

No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs. Throw some of them at me. Come, lame me with reasons.

ROSALIND

Then there were two cousins laid up, when the one should be blamed with reasons and the other mad without any.

CELIA

But is all this for your father?

ROSALIND

No, some of it is for my child's father. O,

laughs dramatically

ROSALIND

how full of briers is this working-day world!

CELIA

They are but burrs, cousin. If we walk not in the trodden paths our very petticoats will catch them.

ROSALIND

I could shake them off my coat; these burrs are in my heart.

CELIA

Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.

ROSALIND

O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself.

gasps excitedly

CELIA

O, a good wish upon you, let us talk in good earnest. Is it possible that on such a sudden you should fall into so strong a liking with old Sir Rowland's youngest son?

ROSALIND

The Duke my father loved his father dearly.

CELIA

Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly? By this kind of chase I should hate him for my father hated his father dearly; yet, I hate not Orlando.

ROSALIND

No, faith, hate him not.

CELIA

Why should I not?

ROSALIND

Oh, let me love him, and do you love him because I do?!

both women laugh with delight

DUKE FREDERICK

Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste And get you from our court.

ROSALIND

Me, uncle?

DUKE FREDERICK

You, cousin. Within these ten days if that thou be'st found So near our public court as ninety miles, Thou diest for it.

ROSALIND

I do beseech your grace, Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me. If with myself I hold intelligence, Never so much as in a thought unborn Did I offend your highness

DUKE FREDERICK

Thus do all traitors. If their purgation did consist in words, They are as innocent as grace itself. Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.

ROSALIND

Yet, your mistrust cannot make me a traitor. Tell me whereon the likelihood depends?

DUKE FREDERICK

Thou art thy father's daughter, there's enough.

ROSALIND

So was I when your highness took his dukedom; So was I when your highness banished him. Treason is not inherited, my lord, Or if we did derive it from our friends, What's that to me? My father was no traitor.

CELIA

Dear sovereign, hear me speak.

DUKE FREDERICK

Ay, Celia, we stayed her for your sake, Else had she with her father ranged along.

CELIA

I did not then entreat to have her stay; It was your own pleasure and your own remorse.

But this I know

that if she be a traitor, Why, so am I. We still have slept together, Rose at an instant, learned, played, ate together, And whereso'er we went, like Juno's swans, Still we went coupled and inseparable.

DUKE FREDERICK

She is too subtle for thee, and her smoothness, Her very silence and her patience Speak to the people, and they pity her. Thou art a fool. She robs thee of thy name, And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous When she is gone. Then open not thy lips. Firm and irrevocable is my doom Which I have passed upon her. She is banished.

CELIA

Pronounce that sentence then on me,

my liege

I cannot live out of her company.

DUKE FREDERICK

You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself. If you outstay the time, upon mine honor And in the greatness of my word, you die.

CELIA

O my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go? Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine. I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am.

ROSALIND

I have more cause.

CELIA

Thou hast not, cousin. Prithee, be cheerful. Knowst thou not the Duke Hath banished me, his daughter?

ROSALIND

That he hath not.

CELIA

No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one. Shall we be sundered? Hmm? Shall we part, sweet girl? No, let my father find another heir! Therefore devise with me how we may fly, And do not seek to take your change upon you To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out. For by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale, Say what thou canst, I'll go with thee.

ROSALIND

Why, whither shall we go?

CELIA

To seek my uncle in the Forest of Arden.

ROSALIND

Alas, what danger will it be to us, Maids as we are, to travel forth so far! Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

CELIA

I'll put myself in poor and mean attire, The like do you; so we shall pass along And never stir assailants.

ROSALIND

Were it not better, That I did suit me all points like a man? A boar-spear in my hand, and in my heart, Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will, We'll have a swashing and a martial outside, As many other mannish cowards have That do outface it with their semblances.

giddily

CELIA

What shall I call thee when thou art a man?

ROSALIND

I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page, And therefore look you call me Ganymede.

Celia laughs

ROSALIND

But what will you be called?

Something that hath a reference to my state

No longer Celia, but... Aliena.

ROSALIND

But cousin, what if we assayed to steal The clownish fool out of your father's court? Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

CELIA

He'll go along o'er the wide world with me. Leave me alone to woo him. Let's away, And get our jewels and our wealth together, Devise the fittest time and safest way To hide us from pursuit that will be made After my flight. Now we go in content To liberty and not to banishment.

ORLANDO

Who's there? -

Jove's breathing distressed

ORLANDO

Oh, Jove!

ADAM

What, my young master? What make you here?

ORLANDO

Why, what's the matter?

ADAM

O unhappy youth, Come not within these doors! Within this roof The enemy of all your graces lives. Your brother,

grumbling

ADAM

no, no brother, and yet the son, Yet not the son; I will not call him son Of him I was about to call his father, Hath heard your praises, and this night he means To burn the lodging where you use to lie, And you within; this house is but a butchery. Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it!

ORLANDO

Why whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go?

ADAM

No matter whither so you come not here.

ORLANDO

What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food, Or with a base and boisterous sword enforce A thievish living on the common road? This I must do, or know not what to do.

ADAM

But do not so. I have five hundred crowns,

rifling through a drawer

ADAM

The thrifty hire I saved under your father, Which I did store to be my foster-nurse, When service should in my old limbs lie lame And unregarded age in corners thrown. Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed, Yea, providently caters to the sparrow, Be comfort to my age.

Here is the gold

All this I give you. Well, let me be your servant. Though I look old, let me go with you. I'll do the service of a younger man In all your business and necessities.

ORLANDO

Good old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree, That cannot so much as a blossom yield In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry. But come thy ways, we'll go along together, And ere we have thy youthful wages spent We'll settle on some settled low content.

Adam shuffles

ADAM

Seventeen years till now, some fourscore Here lived I, but now live here no more. At seventeen years many their fortunes seek, But at fourscore it's too late a week. Yet fortune cannot recompense me better Than to die well and not my master's debtor. Adam!

DUKE FREDERICK

Can it be possible that no man saw them? It cannot be! Some villains of my court Are of consent and sufferance in this.

LE BEAU

I cannot hear of any that did see her. Sheesh! Well, the ladies, her attendants of her chamber, Saw her abed, and in the morning early They found the bed unmeasured of their mistress.

Duke Frederick groans

LE BEAU

My lord, the roynish clown is also missing. What? Hisperia, the princess' gentlewoman, Confesses that she secretly o'erheard Your daughter and her cousin much commend The parts and graces of the wrestler That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles; And she believes that wherever they are gone The youth is surely in their company.

DUKE FREDERICK

Well, fetch that gallant hither! If he be absent, bring his brother to me. I'll make him find him. Do this suddenly! And let not search and inquisition quail To bring again these foolish runaways.

ROSALIND

O

grumbles

ROSALIND

Jupiter, how weary are my spirits!

TOUCHSTONE

I care not for my spirits if my legs were not weary.

ROSALIND

I could find it in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel and to cry like a woman...

distressed groan

CELIA

Ahhhhhh.

ROSALIND

...but I must comfort the weaker vessel; therefore courage, good Aliena.

gasping

CELIA

I pray you,

panting

CELIA

bear with me; I can go no further.

TOUCHSTONE

For my part, I'd rather bear with you than bear you.

Celia groans

ROSALIND

Well, this is the Forest of Arden.

TOUCHSTONE

Ay, now am I in Arden, the more fool I! When I was at home I was in a better place, but travellers must be content.

ROSALIND

Ay, be so, good Touchstone. Look you, who comes here?

CORIN

That is the way to make her scorn you still.

SILVIUS

O Corin, that thou knewst how I do love her!

CORIN

I partly guess, for I have loved ere now.

SILVIUS

No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess, Though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover As ever sighed upon a midnight pillow. But if thy love were ever like to mine, As sure I think did never man love so, How many actions most ridiculous Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy?

CORIN

Into a thousand that I have forgotten.

SILVIUS

O, thou didst then never love so heartily! If thou rememb'rest not the slightest folly That ever love did make thee run into, Thou hast not loved. Or if thou hast not sat as I do now, Wearying thy hearer in thy mistress' praise, Thou hast not loved. Or, if thou hast not broke from company Abruptly as my passion now makes me,

grunts

SILVIUS

Thou hast not loved.

weeping

SILVIUS

O Phoebe,

pounds the wall

SILVIUS

Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe,Phoebe! -

Rosalind gasps

SILVIUS

Alas, poor shepherd, searching of thy wound I've by hard adventure found mine own.

TOUCHSTONE

And I mine. I remember when I was in love I broke my sword upon a stone and bid him 'Take that!' for coming a-night to Jane Smile; and I remember the kissing of her batlet, and the cow's dugs that her pretty chapped hands had milked; and I remember the wooing of a peascod instead of her, from whom I took two peas, and, giving her them again,

said with weeping tears

'Wear these for my sake.' We that are true lovers run into strange capers. But,

chuckles

said with weeping tears

as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly.

ROSALIND

Thou speak'st wiser than thou art ware of.

TOUCHSTONE

Nay, I shall ne'er be ware of mine own wit till I break my shins against it.

CELIA

I pray you, one of you question yon man if he for gold will give us any food. I-- I faint almost to death.

TOUCHSTONE

Holla, you clown!

ROSALIND

Peace, fool, he's not thy kinsman.

CORIN

Who calls?

TOUCHSTONE

Your betters, sir.

CORIN

Else are they very wretched.

ROSALIND

Peace, I say. Good even to you, friend.

CORIN

And to you, gentle sir, and to you all.

ROSALIND

I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold Can in this desert place buy entertainment, Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed. Here's a young maid with travel much oppressed And faints for succour.

CORIN

Fair sir, I pity her And wish, for her sake more than for mine own, My fortunes were more able to relieve her. But I am shepherd to another man And do not shear the fleeces that I graze. My master is of churlish disposition And little recks to find the way to heaven By doing deeds of hospitality. Besides, his coat, his flocks and bounds of feed Are now on sale, and at our sheepcote now, By reason of his absence, there is nothing That you will feed on. But wait, come see, And in my voice most welcome shall you be.

relieved laughter, guitar music

DUKE SENIOR

Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp?

strums guitar, both laugh

DUKE SENIOR

Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court?

strums guitar

DUKE SENIOR

Here feel we not the penalty of Adam, The seasons' difference as the icy fang And churlish chiding of the winter's wind, Which when it bites and blows upon my body Even till I shrink with cold,

I smile and say

This is no flattery. And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

AMIENS

I would not change it. Happy is your Grace That can translate the stubbornness of fortune Into so quiet and so sweet a style.

strums guitar

DUKE SENIOR

Come, shall we go and kill us venison? And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools, Being native burghers of this desert city, Should in their own confines with forked heads Have their round haunches gored.

AMIENS

Indeed, my lord, The melancholy Jacques grieves at that, And in that kind swears you do more usurp Than doth your brother that hath banished you. Today my Lord I did steal behind her as he lay along Under an oak, whose antic root peeps out Upon the brook that brawls along this wood To the which place a poor sequestered stag, That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt, Did come to languish. And thus the hairy fool, Much marked of the melancholy Jaques, Stood on th'extremest verge of the swift brook, Augmenting it with tears.

DUKE SENIOR

But what said Jacques? Did she not moralize this spectacle?

AMIENS

O yes, into a thousand similes. And swears that we Are mere usurpers, tyrants and what's worse, To fright the animals and to kill them up In their assigned and native dwelling-place.

DUKE SENIOR

And did you leave her in this contemplation?

AMIENS

I did, my lord.

DUKE SENIOR

Oh, show me the place. I love to cope her in these sullen fits. For then she's full of matter.

AMIENS

My Lord, I'll bring you to her by and by. And with sweet tune will summon the heart of our most melancholy friend, Anon, sir.

Sings

AMIENS

Under the greenwood tree Who loves to lie with me? And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat Come hither... Come hither, come hither! Come hither! Here shall he see no enemy But winter And rough weather

JAQUES

More, I prithee, more.

AMIENS

It will make you melancholy, Madame Jacques.

JAQUES

I thank it; more, I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs.

My voice is ragged

I know I cannot please you.

JAQUES

I do not desire you to please me; I do desire you to sing. Will you?

AMIENS

More at your request than to please myself. The Duke hath been all this day to look you. -

Jaques sighs heavily

JAQUES

And I have been all this day to avoid him; he is too disputable for my company. I think of as many matters as he, but I give heaven thanks and make no boast of them. I'll give you a verse to this note that I made yesterday in despite of my invention.

Thus it goes

Amiens strums guitar

Thus it goes

Jaques singing

Thus it goes

If it do come to pass That any man turn ass Leaving his wealth and ease A stubborn will to please Ducdame (Ducdame) Ducdame (Ducdame)

strums guitar

Thus it goes

Here shall he see Gross fools as he If he will Come to me

AMIENS

What's that 'ducdame'?

JAQUES

'Tis a Greek invocation to call fools into a circle. I'll go sleep if I can; if I cannot, I'll rail against all the first-born of Egypt.

AMIENS

And I'll go seek the Duke.

winded, Orlando pants

ADAM

Oh, dear, dear master, I can go no further.

ORLANDO

How now, Adam?

ADAM

I die for food!

ORLANDO

No, no, no, no, no, no! No greater heart in thee?

laughs anxiously

ORLANDO

How now, Adam? -

Adam groans

ORLANDO

If this uncouth forest yield any thing savage I will either be food for it or yield it for food to thee. -

Adam pants and groans

ORLANDO

Hold death at the arm's end a little longer. I will here be with thee presently, and if I bring thee not something to eat, thou hast my leave to die; but if thou diest before I come, thou art a mocker of my labour. -

Adam grunts affirmatively

ORLANDO

I'll be with thee presently. -

Adam breathes laboriously, groans

ORLANDO

Yet thou liest in the bleak air. Come. -

Adam gasps raggedly

ORLANDO

I will bear thee to some shelter and thou shalt not die for lack of a dinner while there live anything in this desert. Cheerly, good Adam, come.

DUKE SENIOR

I think she be transformed into a beast, For I can nowhere find her like a woman.

AMIENS

My lord,

she is but even now gone hence

Here was she merry, hearing of a song.

DUKE SENIOR

Well, if she grow musical, We shall have shortly discord in the spheres.

Amiens chuckles

DUKE SENIOR

Oh. Why, how now, Madame! What a life is this That your poor friends must woo your company! -

Jaques scoffs incredulously

DUKE SENIOR

What, what, you look merrily.

JAQUES

A fool, a fool! I met a fool in the forest, As I do live by food, I met a fool, Who laid him down and basked him in the sun, And railed on Lady Fortune in good terms, In good set terms and yet a motley fool!

DUKE SENIOR

What fool is this?

JAQUES

One that hath been a courtier, And in his brain, Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit After a voyage, he hath strange places crammed With observation, the which he vents In mangled forms. O that I were a fool! I am ambitious for a motley coat.

DUKE SENIOR

Well, thou shalt have one.

JAQUES

It is my only suit, Provided that you weed your better judgments Of all opinion that grows rank in them That I am wise. Oh, I must have liberty Withal, as large a charter as the wind To blow on whom I please, for so fools have, Invest me in my motley. Give me leave To speak my mind, and I will through and through Cleanse the foul body of th'infected world, If they will patiently receive my medicine.

DUKE SENIOR

Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do.

JAQUES

What, for a counter, would I do but good?

DUKE SENIOR

Most mischievous foul sin in chiding sin. For thou thyself hast been a libertine, As sensual as the brutish sting itself. -

Jaques sighs

panting

ORLANDO

Forbear and eat no more!

JAQUES

Why, I have ate none yet.

ORLANDO

Nor shalt not till necessity be served.

DUKE SENIOR

Art thou thus boldened, man, by thy distress? Or else a rude despiser of good manners, That in civility thou seem'st so empty?

ORLANDO

You touched my vein at first. The thorny point Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show Of smooth civility; yet am I inland bred And know some nurture. But forbear, I say! He dies that touches any of this fruit Till I and my affairs be answered.

JAQUES

No I will not be answered with reason, I must die.

DUKE SENIOR

What would you have? Your gentleness shall force More than your force move us to gentleness.

shaking

ORLANDO

I almost die for food and let me have it.

DUKE SENIOR

Sit down and feed and welcome to our table.

ORLANDO

Speak you so gently? I pray you, pardon me, I thought that all things had been savage here And therefore put I on the countenance Of stern commandment. But whate'er you are, If ever you have seen better days, If ever been where bells have knolled to church, If ever sat at any good man's feast, And if ever from thy eyelids wiped a tear, And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied "Let gentleness my stern commandment be, In the which hope, I blush and hide my blades.

knife clatters

DUKE SENIOR

True is it that we have seen better days, And have with holy bell been knolled to church, And sat at good men's feasts, and wiped our eyes Of drops that sacred pity hath engendered; And therefore, sit you down in gentleness And take upon command what help we have That to your wanting may be ministered.

ORLANDO

Ah... There is an old poor man That after me hath many a weary step Limped in pure love. Till he be first sufficed, Oppressed with two weak evils, age and hunger, I will not touch a bit.

DUKE SENIOR

Go find him out, And we will nothing waste till you return.

ORLANDO

I thank you, and be blest for your good comfort.

DUKE SENIOR

Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy. This wide and universal theatre Presents more woeful pageants than the scene Wherein we play in.

JAQUES

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms; Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school; and then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow;

Duke Senior chuckles

JAQUES

Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth; and then the justice, With fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, -

Adam wheezes shallow breaths

JAQUES

That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans......everything. -

Adam straining to breath

DUKE SENIOR

Welcome. Set down your venerable burden And let him feed.

ORLANDO

I thank you most for him.

ADAM

So had you need; I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.

DUKE SENIOR

Welcome, fall to. I will not trouble you As yet to question you about your fortunes. Give us some music, and, good cousin, sing.

strums guitar

DUKE SENIOR

sings

AMIENS

Blow, blow, thou winter wind Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude Man's ingratitude Thy tooth is not so keen Because thou art not seen

Adams struggles for air

AMIENS

Although thy breath be rude Thy breath be rude Hey ho! Hey ho! Unto the green holly Most friendship is feigning Most loving mere folly Then hey-ho, the holly! This life is most jolly

DUKE SENIOR

If that you be the good Sir Rowland's son, And as mine eye doth his effigies witness, Most truly limned and living in your face, Be truly welcome hither. I am the Duke That loved your father. Um, the residue of your fortune Go to my cave and tell me. And good old man, Thou art right welcome as thy master is.

sings

ORLANDO

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot Benefits forgot Though thou the waters warp Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remembered not As friend remembered not Hey ho! Hey ho! Unto the green holly Most friendship is feigning Most loving mere folly Then hey-ho, the holly! This life is most jolly [pianist plays arpeggios in a minor key

playing string instruments

ORLANDO

DUKE FREDERICK

Not see him since? Sir, sir, that cannot be. But were I not the better part made mercy I should not seek an absent argument Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it! Find out thy brother wheresoe'er he is; Bring him dead or living Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more To seek a living in our territory.

O that your highness knew my heart in this

I never loved my brother in my life.

DUKE FREDERICK

More villain thou! Well, push him out of doors, And let my officers of such a nature Make an extent upon his house and lands. Do this suddenly, and turn him going.

uneven breathing, panting

ORLANDO

Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love. And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above, Thy huntress' name which my full life doth sway. O Rosalind, these trees shall be my books, And in their barks my thoughts I'll character, Run, run, Orlando, carve on every tree The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she!

slams book closed

CORIN

How like you this shepherd's life, Master Touchstone?

TOUCHSTONE

Oh, truly shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now in respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As is it a spare life, look you, it fits my humor well; but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?

CORIN

No more but that I know the more one sickens the worse at ease he is; that the property of rain is to wet and fire to burn; that uh good pasture makes fat sheep; and

snapping fingers

CORIN

the great cause of the night is lack of the sun.

TOUCHSTONE

Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in court, shepherd?

CORIN

No, truly.

TOUCHSTONE

Then thou art damned.

CORIN

For not being at court? Your reason?

TOUCHSTONE

If thou never wast at court thou never sawest good manners; if thou never sawest good manners thy manners must be wicked, wickedness is sin, sin is damnation, yadda yadda yadda. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd.

CORIN

Not a whit, Touchstone. Those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behavior of the country is most mockable at the court.

Touchstone laughs

CORIN

You told me you salute not at the court but you kiss your hands. That courtesy would be uncleanly if courtiers were shepherds.

TOUCHSTONE

Instance, briefly, come.

CORIN

Why, we are still handling our ewes, and their fells you know are greasy.

TOUCHSTONE

Why, do not your courtier's hands sweat? And is not the grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of a man? Oh, shallow. A better instance, I say. Come.

CORIN

Besides, our hands are hard.

TOUCHSTONE

Your lips shall feel them the sooner shallow again.

CORIN

And they are often tarred over with the surgery of our sheep, and would you have us kiss tar? The courtier's hands are perfumed with civet.

TOUCHSTONE

Oh, thou worm's meat in respect of a good piece of flesh indeed! Learn of the wise and perpend. Civet is of a baser birth than tar, the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Oh, mend the instance, shepherd.

CORIN

You have too courtly a wit for me, I'll rest. -

Touchstone chuckles

CORIN

Here comes young Master Ganymede.

reading

ROSALIND

From the east to western Inde No jewel is like Rosalind. Her worth being mounted on the wind Through all the world bears Rosalind. All the pictures fairest lined Are but black to Rosalind.

giggles

ROSALIND

Let no fair be kept in mind But the fair of Rosalind.

TOUCHSTONE

Psst... I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners and suppers and sleeping-hours excepted.

ROSALIND

Out, fool!

TOUCHSTONE

For a taste, for a taste, for a taste, If a hart do lack a hind, Let him seek out Rosalind. If the cat will after kind, So be sure will Rosalind. Sweetest nut hath sourest rind, Such a nut is Rosalind. He that sweetest rose will find Must find love's prick and Rosalind. This is the very false gallop of verse. Why do you infect yourself with them?

ROSALIND

Peace fool, I found them on a tree.

TOUCHSTONE

No truly, the tree yields bad fruit. -

Celia cracks up laughing

Reading

CELIA

Helen's cheek but not her heart, Cleopatra's majesty, Atalanta's better part, Sad Lucretia's modesty. Thus Rosalind of many parts By heavenly synod was devised, Of many faces, eyes and hearts To have the touches dearest prized. Heaven would that she these gifts should have, And I to live and die her slave.

Rosalind and Celia laugh wickedly

ROSALIND

O most gentle pulpiter, what tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal.

CELIA

Back, friend. Shepherd, go off a little; go with him, sirrah.

TOUCHSTONE

Come, shepherd, let us make an honorable retreat, though with not with bag and baggage yet with scrip and scrippage. Ooh, ooh oh, when in love I lose my mind,

Celia

GO!!! - I'll get jiggy with Rosalind.

CELIA

Get out! Didst thou hear these verses?

ROSALIND

O yes, I heard them all.

CELIA

But didst thou hear, without wondering, how thy name should be hanged and carved among these trees?

ROSALIND

I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder before you came; for look here what I found.

CELIA

Trow you who hath done this?

ROSALIND

Is it a man?

CELIA

And a chain that you once wore about his neck. Change you color?

ROSALIND

I prithee, who?

chortles

CELIA

Is it possible?

ROSALIND

Nay, I prithee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is.

CELIA

O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all hooping!

ROSALIND

Good my complexion! Dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition? One inch of delay more is a South Sea of discovery. I prithee tell me who is it quickly, and speak apace. I prithee take the cork out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings.

CELIA

So you may put a man in your belly.

ROSALIND

What manner of man? Is his head worth a hat? Or his chin worth a beard?

CELIA

It is young Orlando, that tripped up the wrestler's heels and your heart both in an instant.

ROSALIND

Nay, but the devil take mocking! Speak sad brow and true maid.

CELIA

I' faith, coz, 'tis he.

ROSALIND

Orlando?

CELIA

Orlando.

ROSALIND

Alas the day, what shall I do with my doublet and hose? What did he when thou sawest him? What said he? How looked he? Wherein went he? What makes he here? Did he ask for me? Where remains he? How parted he with thee? And when shalt thou see him again? Answer me in one word.

CELIA

You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first. 'Tis a word too great for any age's this mouth's size.

ROSALIND

But doth he know that I am in this forest in man's apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the day he wrestled?

CELIA

Take a taste of my finding him and relish it with good observance. I found him under a tree, like a dropped acorn.

ROSALIND

It may well be called Jove's tree since it drops forth such fruit.

CELIA

Give me audience, good madame.

ROSALIND

Proceed.

CELIA

There lay he stretched along like a wounded knight.

ROSALIND

Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes the ground.

CELIA

Cry holla to thy tongue,

I prithee

it skips unseasonably. He was furnished like a hunter

ROSALIND

O ominous, he comes to kill my heart!

CELIA

Soft, he comes not here?

ROSALIND

'Tis he! Slink by and note him.

JAQUES

I thank you for your company but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone.

ORLANDO

And so had I, but yet for fashion' sake I thank you too for your society.

JAQUES

God be with you, let's meet as little as we can.

ORLANDO

I do desire we may be better strangers.

JAQUES

I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love-songs in their barks.

ORLANDO

I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.

JAQUES

Rosalind is your love's name?

ORLANDO

Yes, just.

JAQUES

I do not like her name.

ORLANDO

There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.

JAQUES

What stature is she of?

ORLANDO

Just as high as my heart.

JAQUES

You have a nimble wit; By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found you.

ORLANDO

Oh, she is drowned in the brook. Look but in and you shall see her.

JAQUES

I'll tarry no longer with you. Farewell, good Signior Love.

ORLANDO

I am glad of your departure. Adieu, good Madame Melancholy.

ROSALIND

I will speak to him like a saucy lackey and under that habit play the knave with him. Do you hear, forester?

ORLANDO

Very well; what would you?

ROSALIND

I pray you, what is't o'clock?

laughs

ORLANDO

You should ask me what time o' day. There's no clock in the forest.

ROSALIND

Then there is no true lover in the forest, else sighing every minute and groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot of time as well as a clock.

ORLANDO

And why not the swift foot of time? Had not that been as proper?

ROSALIND

By no means, sir. Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal and who he stands still withal.

laughs

ORLANDO

I prithee, who doth he trot withal?

ROSALIND

Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnized. If the interim be but a se'nnight, Time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven year.

ORLANDO

Who does he amble withal?

ROSALIND

With a priest that lacks Latin, and a rich man that hath not the gout; for the one sleeps easily because he cannot study, and the other lives merrily because he feels no pain. These Time ambles withal. -

Orlando laughs

ORLANDO

Who doth Time gallop withal?

ROSALIND

With a thief to the gallows; for though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.

ORLANDO

Who stays it still withal?

ROSALIND

With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term and term and perceive not how time moves.

laughs

ORLANDO

Where dwell you, pretty youth?

ROSALIND

With the shepherdess, my sister, here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.

ORLANDO

Are you native of this place?

ROSALIND

As the rabbit that you see dwell where she is kindled.

ORLANDO

Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling.

ROSALIND

I have been told so of many. An old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland man one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it.

ORLANDO

Can you remember any of the principal evils he laid to the charge of love? I prithee, recount some of them.

ROSALIND

No. I will not cast away my physic but on those that are sick. There is a man haunts the forest that abuses our young plants with carving 'Rosalind' on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies on brambles; all, forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind. If I could meet that fancy-monger I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him.

ORLANDO

I am he that is so love-shaked. I pray thee, tell me your remedy.

ROSALIND

There is none of mine uncle's marks upon you. He taught me how to know a man in love, in which cage of rushes I am sure you are no prisoner.

ORLANDO

What were his marks?

ROSALIND

A lean cheek, which you have not; a blue eye and sunken, which you have not; an unquestionable spirit, which you have not; a beard neglected, which you have not. Then your hose should be ungartered, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and everything about you demonstrating a careless desolation. No, but you are no such man. You are rather point-device in your accoutrements, as loving yourself as seeming the lover of any other.

ORLANDO

Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.

ROSALIND

Me believe it? You may as soon make her that you love believe it, which I warrant she is apter to do than to confess she does. But in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind is so admired?

ORLANDO

I swear to thee, youth, by the soft hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he.

ROSALIND

But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?

ORLANDO

Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much. -

Rosalind laughs apprehensively

ROSALIND

Love is merely a madness, and I tell you deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel.

ORLANDO

Did you ever cure any so?

ROSALIND

Yes, one, and in this manner. He was to imagine me his love, his mistress, and I set him every day to woo me. At which time would I now loath him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his mad humor of love to a living humor of madness, which was to forswear the full stream of the world and to live in a nook merely monastic. And thus I cured him, and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in't.

ORLANDO

I would not be cured, youth.

ROSALIND

I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind and come every day to my cottage and woo me.

ORLANDO

Now, by my faith, I will. Tell me where it is. -

Rosalind stammers

ORLANDO

Go with me and I'll show it you; and by the way you shall tell me where in the forest you live. Will you go? With all my heart, good youth.

ROSALIND

Nay, you must call me Rosalind. -

Orlando responds agreeably

ROSALIND

Come, sister, will you go?

TOUCHSTONE

Come apace, good Audrey, I will fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how now, Audrey? Am I the man yet? Doth my simple feature content you?

AUDREY

Your features, Lord warrant us! What features? -

Touchstone laughs

TOUCHSTONE

I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid was among the Goths.

JAQUES

O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatched house.

TOUCHSTONE

When a man's verses cannot be understood it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room. Oh, I would the gods had made thee poetical.

AUDREY

I do not know what "poetical" is. Is it honest in word and deed? Is it a true thing?

TOUCHSTONE

No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most faining, and lovers are given to poetry.

AUDREY

Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical?

TOUCHSTONE

I do truly, for thou swear'st to me that thou art honest. Now if thou wert a poet I might have some hope that thou didst feign.

AUDREY

Would you not have me honest?

TOUCHSTONE

No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favored; for honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.

AUDREY

Well, I am not fair, therefore, I pray the gods make me honest.

TOUCHSTONE

Oh, truly; and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat in an unclean dish.

AUDREY

I am not a slut, but I thank the gods I am foul. -

Touchstone hyperventilating

AUDREY

Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness. -

Audrey laughs giddily

Touchstone

Sluttishness may come hereafter.

dirty laugh

Touchstone

But be that it as it may, I will marry thee. And to that effect, I have been with Reverend Olive Martext, the vicar of the next village, who hath promised to meet me in this place of the forest and to couple us.

excited squeal-laugh

JAQUES

I would fain see this meeting.

AUDREY

Well, the gods give us joy!

TOUCHSTONE

Ooh, here comes the Reverend Olive Martext. Reverend Olive Martext, you are well met. Will you dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel?

OLIVE MARTEXT

Uhh... Is there none here to give the woman?

TOUCHSTONE

I will not take her on gift of any man.

OLIVE MARTEXT

Truly, she must be given or the marriage is not lawful.

JAQUES

Proceed, proceed. I'll give her.

TOUCHSTONE

Oh good even, good Mistress What-ye-call't, how do you, miss? Oh, you are very well met. God 'ild you for your last company. I am very glad to see you.

clears throat

TOUCHSTONE

Even a toy in hand here, ma'am, nay, I pray, be covered.

JAQUES

Will you be married, motley?

TOUCHSTONE

As the ox hath his yoke, the horse his rein, and the falcon her bells, so man has his desires; and wedlock would be nibbling.

JAQUES

And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is. This woman will but join you together as they join wainscot; and then, one of you will prove a shrunk panel and, like green timber, warp. Warp.

TOUCHSTONE

I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of this reverend than of another, for she is not like to marry me well, and not being well married it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife.

JAQUES

Go thou with me and let me counsel thee.

TOUCHSTONE

Come, sweet Audrey. We must be married, or we live in bawdry. Farewell, good Olive. Not

Singing and dancing

TOUCHSTONE

O sweet Olive, O brave Olive Leave me not behind thee But wind away Be gone, I say I will not to wedding with thee

OLIVE MARTEXT

'Tis no matter. Ne'er a fantastical knave of them all. May all flout me out of my calling.

Rosalind sighs angstfully

ROSALIND

Never talk to me. I will weep.

CELIA

Do, I prithee, but yet have the grace to consider that tears do not become a man.

ROSALIND

But have I not cause to weep?

CELIA

As good a cause as one would desire; therefore weep.

ROSALIND

His very hair is of the dissembling color.

CELIA

Something browner than Judas's. Marry, his kisses are Judas's own children.

ROSALIND

I' faith, his hair is of a good color.

CELIA

An excellent color.

ROSALIND

And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread.

CELIA

A nun of winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in them.

ROSALIND

But why did he swear he would come this morning and comes not?

CELIA

Nay certainly there is no truth in him.

ROSALIND

Do you think so?

CELIA

Yes. I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer, but for his verity in love I do think him as concave as a worm-eaten nut.

ROSALIND

Not true in love?

CELIA

Yes, when he's in but I think he is not in.

ROSALIND

You have heard him say downright he was.

CELIA

'Was' is not 'is.' Besides, the oath of a lover

is no stronger than the word of a tapster

they are both the confirmer of false reckonings. He attends here in the forest on the Duke your father.

ROSALIND

I met the Duke yesterday and had much question with him. He asked me of what parentage I was. I told him of as good as he, so he laughed and let me go. But what talk we of fathers when there is such a man as Orlando?

CELIA

O, that's a brave man! He writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths and breaks them bravely quite athwart the heart of his lover.

CORIN

Mistress and master, you have oft enquired After the shepherd that complained of love, Who praised the proud disdainful shepherdess who was his mistress.

CELIA

Well, and what of him?

CORIN

If you will see a pageant truly played Between the pale complexion of true love And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain, Go hence a little.

Phoebe screams

SILVIUS

Sweet Phoebe, do not scorn me, do not, Phoebe. Say that you love me not, but say not so In bitterness. The common executioner, Whose heart th'accustomed sight of death makes hard, Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck But first begs pardon.

laughs

SILVIUS

Will you sterner be Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?

PHOEBE

I would not be thy executioner; I fly thee for I would not injure thee. Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye.

laughs bitterly

PHOEBE

'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable Eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things, Who shut their coward gates on atomies, Should be called tyrants, butchers, murderers. Now I do frown on thee with all my heart, And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee. Now counterfeit to swoon, why now fall down! Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame, Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.

Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee

Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains some scar of it; But now mine eyes, Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not, Nor I am sure there is no force in eyes That can do hurt.

SILVIUS

O dear Phoebe, If ever, as that ever may be near, You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy, Then shall you know the wounds invisible That love's keen arrows make.

PHOEBE

But till that time Come not thou near me.

laughs hysterically

PHOEBE

When that time comes, Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not, For till that time I shall not pity thee.

ROSALIND

And why, I pray you? Who might be your mother, That you insult, exult, and all at once Over the wretched? 'Od's my little life, I think she means to tangle my eyes too! No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it. You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain? You are a thousand times a properer man Than she a woman. 'Tis such fools as you That makes the world full of ill-favored children. 'Tis not her glass but you that flatters her, And out of you she sees herself more proper Than any of her lineaments can show her. But, mistress, know yourself; down on your knees, And thank heaven fasting for a good man's love.

For I must tell you friendly in your ear

Sell when you can, you are not for all markets. Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer.

PHOEBE

Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together! I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.

ROSALIND

I pray you do not fall in love with me. -

Phoebe gasps

ROSALIND

For I am falser than vows made in wine. Besides, I like you not. Shepherd, ply her hard. Shepherdess, look on him better, And be not proud. -

Phoebe laugh-cries

PHOEBE

Dear shepherd,

now I find thy saw of might

'Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?'

SILVIUS

Sweet Phoebe.

PHOEBE

Ha?

SILVIUS

Please, listen

PHOEBE

What sayst thou, Silvius?

SILVIUS

Sweet Phoebe, pity me.

PHOEBE

Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.

SILVIUS

Wherever sorrow is, relief would be. If you do sorrow at my grief in love, By giving love your sorrow and my grief Were both extermined.

PHOEBE

Silvius, the time was that I hated thee, And yet it is not that I bear thee love, But since that thou canst talk of love so well, Thy company, which erst was irksome to me, I will endure, and I'll employ thee too. But do not look for further recompense Than thine own gladness that thou art employed.

SILVIUS

But so holy and so perfect is my love, And I in such a poverty of grace, That I shall think it a most plenteous crop To glean the broken ears after the man That the main harvest reaps. Loose now and then A scattered smile, and that I'll live upon.

PHOEBE

Knowst thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?

SILVIUS

Not very well, but I have met him oft, And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds That the old Carlot once was master of. -

Phoebe laughs wickedly

PHOEBE

Think not I love him though I ask for him. 'Tis but a peevish boy yet he talks well.

laughs sharply

PHOEBE

But what care I for words? Yet words do well When he that speaks them pleases those that hear. It is a pretty youth, not very pretty, But sure he's proud, and yet his pride becomes him. And faster than his tongue Did make offense, his eye did heal it up. There was a pretty redness in his lip. There be some women, Silvius, had they marked him In parcels as I did, would have gone near To fall in love with him; but for my part I love him not, nor hate him not. And yet I have more cause to hate him than to love him, For what had he to do to chide at me? Oh, I marvel that I answered not again. But that's all one omittance is no quittance. I'll write to him a very taunting letter And thou shalt bear it. Wilt thou, Silvius?

SILVIUS

Phoebe, with all my heart.

PHOEBE

Oh, I'll write it straight. The matter's in my head and in my heart; I will be bitter with him and passing short.

laughs maniacally

PHOEBE

Go with me, Silvius. -

Rosalind sighs angrily

JAQUES

I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee.

ROSALIND

They say you are melancholy.

JAQUES

I am so, but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry computation of my travels,

Rosalind growls

JAQUES

in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness.

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.

JAQUES

I've 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.

ORLANDO

Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind. -

Jaques sighs disdainfully

ORLANDO

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

ROSALIND

Why, how now, Orlando, where have you been all this while? You a lover? An you serve me such another trick, never come in my sight more!

ORLANDO

Pardon me, dear Rosalind.

ROSALIND

Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more! 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. Besides, he brings his destiny with him.

ORLANDO

What's that?

ROSALIND

Why, horns.

ORLANDO

Virtue is no horn-maker and my Rosalind is virtuous.

ROSALIND

And I am your Rosalind.

sighs

ROSALIND

Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holiday humor and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, an I were your very, very Rosalind?

ORLANDO

I would kiss before I spoke. -

Rosalind clears throat awkwardly

ORLANDO

Nay, you were better speak first, and when you were gravelled for lack of matter you might take occasion to kiss. Very good orators when they are out, they will spit, and for lovers lacking

God warrant us

ORLANDO

matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss. How if the kiss be denied?

ROSALIND

Then she puts you to entreaty and there begins new matter.

ORLANDO

Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?

ROSALIND

Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or I should think my honesty ranker than my wit. Am not I your Rosalind?

ORLANDO

I take some joy to say you are because I would be talking of her.

ROSALIND

Well, in her person, I say I will not have you.

ORLANDO

Then, in mine own person, I die.

ROSALIND

No, faith. The poor world is almost 6,000 years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in a love-cause. Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

ORLANDO

I would not have my right, Rosalind, of this mind, for I protest her frown might kill me.

ROSALIND

By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition, and ask me what you will, I will grant it.

ORLANDO

Then love me, Rosalind.

ROSALIND

Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays and all.

ORLANDO

And wilt thou have me?

ROSALIND

Ay, and twenty such.

ORLANDO

What sayest thou?

ROSALIND

Are you not good?

I hope so. - ROSALIND

Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing? 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.

You must begin

'Will you, Orlando,'

CELIA

Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?

ORLANDO

I will.

ROSALIND

Ay, but when?

ORLANDO

Why now, as quickly as she can marry us.

Then you must say

'I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.'

ORLANDO

I take thee, Rosalind, for wife. -

Celia gasps nervously

ROSALIND

I might ask you for your commission. But I do take thee, Orlando, for my husband. Now tell me how long you would have her after you have possessed her?

ORLANDO

For ever and a day.

ROSALIND

Say 'a day' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando, men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a cock-pigeon over his hen, more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when thou art disposed to be merry. I will laugh like a hyena, and that when thou art inclined to sleep.

ORLANDO

But will my Rosalind do so?

ROSALIND

By my life, she will do as I do.

ORLANDO

O, but she is wise.

ROSALIND

Or else she could not have the wit to do this, the wiser, the waywarder. Thou make the doors upon a woman's wit and it will out at the casement. Shut that and 'twill out at the keyhole. Stop that, and 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.

ORLANDO

If a man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say 'Wit, whither wilt'?

ROSALIND

Nay, you might keep that check for it till you met your wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed.

ORLANDO

And what wit could wit have to excuse that?

ROSALIND

Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall never take her without her answer unless you take her without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband's occasion, oh let her never nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool!

ORLANDO

For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.

ROSALIND

Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours.

ORLANDO

I must attend the Duke. By two o'clock I will be with thee again.

ROSALIND

Ay, go your ways, go your ways. I knew what you would prove. My friends told me as much and I thought no less. That flattering tongue of yours won me. 'Tis but one cast away, and so, come death! Two o'clock is your hour?

ORLANDO

Ay, sweet Rosalind.

ROSALIND

By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, if you break one jot of your promise or come one minute behind your hour, I will think you the most pathetical break-promise and the most hollow lover and the most unworthy of her you call, Rosalind. Therefore beware my censure and keep your promise.

ORLANDO

With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my Rosalind. And so adieu.

ROSALIND

Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let Time try. Adieu.

laughs

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.

ROSALIND

O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal.

CELIA

Or rather bottomless, that as fast as you pour affection in, it runs out.

ROSALIND

I tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando. I'll go find a shadow and sigh till he come.

CELIA

But look who comes here.

panting

SILVIUS

My errand is to you, fair youth. My gentle Phoebe, bid me give you this. I know not the contents, but as I guess By the stern brow and waspish action Which she did use as she was writing of it, It bears an angry tenor. Pardon me, I am but as a guiltless messenger.

ROSALIND

Patience herself would startle at this letter And play the swaggerer.

scoffs

ROSALIND

Bear this, bear all! She says I am not fair, that I lack manners; Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well, This is a letter of your own device.

SILVIUS

No, I protest, I know not the contents. Phoebe did write it.

ROSALIND

Come, come, you are a fool. And turn'd into the extremity of love. I say she never did invent this letter; This is a man's invention and his hand.

SILVIUS

Sure, it is hers.

ROSALIND

Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel style, A style for challengers. Will you hear the letter?

SILVIUS

So please you, for I never heard it yet, Yet heard too much of Phoebe's cruelty.

ROSALIND

She Phoebes me. Mark how the tyrant writes.

Reads

ROSALIND

Art thou god to shepherd turned, That a maiden's heart hath burned? Can a woman rail thus?

SILVIUS

Call you this railing?

Reads

ROSALIND

Why, thy godhead laid apart, Warr'st thou with a woman's heart? Did you ever hear such railing? If the scorn of my bright eyne Have power to raise such love in thine, Alack, in me what strange effect Would they have in mild aspect? He that brings this love to thee Little knows this love in me And by him seal up thy mind, Whether that thy youth and kind Will the faithful offer take Of me, and all that I can make, Or else by him my love deny, And then I'll study how to die

SILVIUS

Call you this chiding?

CELIA

Alas, poor shepherd.

ROSALIND

Do you pity him? No, he deserves no pity. Wilt thou love such a woman? What, to make thee an instrument and play false strains upon thee? Not to be endured! Well, go your way to her, for I see love hath made thee a tame snake,

and say this to her

that if she love me, I charge her to love thee. If she will not, I will never have her unless thou entreat for her. If you be a true lover, hence and not a word, for here comes more company.

OLIVER

Good morrow, fair one. Pray you, if you know, Where in the purlieus of this forest stands A sheepcote fenced about with olive-trees?

CELIA

Ah ah ah, west. West of this place, down the neighbouring bottom; The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream, Left. On your right hand, brings you to the place. But at this hour the house doth keep itself, There's none within.

OLIVER

If that an eye may profit by a tongue, Then should I know you by description,

Such garments and such years

'The boy is fair, Of female favour, and bestows himself Like a right forester. ' Are not you The owner of the house that I did inquire for?

CELIA

It is no boast, being asked, to say we are.

OLIVER

Orlando doth commend him to you both, And to that youth he calls his Rosalind, he sends this bloody napkin. Are you he?

ROSALIND

I am. What must we understand by this?

OLIVER

Some of my shame, if you will know of me What man I am, and how and why and where This handkerchief was stained.

CELIA

I pray you tell it.

OLIVER

When last the young - Orlando parted from you, He left a promise to return again Within an hour, and pacing through the forest, Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy, Lo, what befell. He threw his eye aside, And mark what object did present itself. Under an oak, whose boughs were mossed with age And high top bald with dry antiquity, A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair, Lay sleeping on his back; about his neck A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself, Who with her head, nimble in threats, approached The opening of his mouth. But suddenly seeing Orlando, it unlinked itself And with indented glides did slip away Into a bush; under which bush's shade A lioness, with udders all drawn dry, Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch When that the sleeping man should stir. For 'tis The royal disposition of that beast To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead. This seen, Orlando did approach the man And found it was his brother, his elder brother.

CELIA

O, I have heard him speak of that same brother, And he did render him the most unnatural That ever lived amongst men.

OLIVER

And well he might so do, For well I know he was unnatural.

ROSALIND

But to Orlando did he leave him there, Food to the sucked and hungry lioness?

OLIVER

Twice did he turn his back and purposed so; 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.

CELIA

Are you his brother?

ROSALIND

Was't you he rescued?

CELIA

Was't you that did so oft contrive to kill him?

OLIVER

'Twas I, but 'tis not I. I do not shame To tell you what I was, since my conversion So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.

ROSALIND

But for the bloody napkin?

OLIVER

By and by. When from the first to last betwixt us two Tears our recountments had most kindly bathed, I'brief, he led me to the gentle Duke Who gave me fresh array and entertainment, Committing me unto my brother's love, Who led me instantly unto his cave; There stripped himself and here, upon his arm, The lioness had torn some flesh away, Which all this while had bled. And now he fainted, And cried in fainting upon Rosalind. Brief, I recovered him, bound up his wound, And after some small space, being strong at heart, He sent me hither, stranger as I am, To tell this story, that you might excuse His broken promise; and to give this napkin, Dyed in his blood, unto the shepherd youth That he in sport doth call his Rosalind.

CELIA

Why, how now, Ganymede, oh sweet Ganymede!

OLIVER

Many will swoon when they do look on blood.

CELIA

There is more in it. Cousin, Ganymede!

panicked breathing

ROSALIND

I would I were at home.

CELIA

We'll lead you thither. I pray you, will you take him by the arm?

OLIVER

Be of good cheer, youth. You a man? You lack a man's heart.

ROSALIND

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

This was not counterfeit

there is too great testimony in your complexion that it was a passion of earnest.

ROSALIND

Counterfeit, I assure you.

OLIVER

Well then, take a good heart, and counterfeit to be a man.

ROSALIND

So I do.

CELIA

Come, you look paler and paler. Pray you, draw homewards. Good sir, go with us.

OLIVER

That will I, for I must bear answer back How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.

ROSALIND

I shall devise something; but I pray you commend my counterfeiting to him.

Groaning

TOUCHSTONE

We shall find a time, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey.

AUDREY

Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the gentlewoman's saying.

TOUCHSTONE

Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest lays claim to you.

AUDREY

Ay, I know who 'tis. He hath no interest in me in the world. Here comes the man you mean.

WILLIAM

Good ev'n, Audrey.

AUDREY

God ye good ev'n, William.

WILLIAM

And good ev'n to you, sir.

TOUCHSTONE

Good ev'n, friend. Oh no, cover thy head, cover thy head. Nay, prithee be covered. How old are you, friend?

WILLIAM

Five-and-forty, sir.

TOUCHSTONE

A ripe age. Is thy name William?

WILLIAM

William, sir.

TOUCHSTONE

A fair name. Wast born in the forest here?

WILLIAM

Yeah, ay, sir, and I thank God for it.

TOUCHSTONE

Oh 'Thank God' a good answer, good answer. Art rich?

WILLIAM

Yeah, faith, sir, yeah so, so-so.

TOUCHSTONE

'So-so' is good, very good, very excellent good and yet it is not, it is but so-so. Art thou wise?

WILLIAM

Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.

TOUCHSTONE

Oh, well, thou sayest well. I do now remember a saying that 'The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.'

laughs

TOUCHSTONE

Whoo! You do love this maid?

WILLIAM

Yeah I do, sir.

TOUCHSTONE

Give me your hand.

WILLIAM

Uh-uh, uh-uh

TOUCHSTONE

Art thou learned?

WILLIAM

No, sir.

Then learn this of me

to have is to have for I am he.

WILLIAM

Which which which is he, sir?

TOUCHSTONE

He, sir, that must marry this woman. And therefore, clown, abandon

which is, in the vulgar, -leave'

TOUCHSTONE

the society

which is in the company'

TOUCHSTONE

boorish woman, which is, in the female

which is -woman'

TOUCHSTONE

;

which together is

'abandon the society of this female', or clown, thou perishest! Or to thy better understanding, diest. Or

to wit

which together is

I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death, thy liberty into bondage. I will deal in poison with thee, or in bastinado or in steel; I will o'errun thee with policy. I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways! And therefore tremble and depart.

WILLIAM

All right.

AUDREY

Do, good William.

WILLIAM

Yeah. Yeah, God rest you merry, sir.

CORIN

Touchstone, our master and mistress seeks you. Come away, come on.

TOUCHSTONE

Trip, Audrey, trip, Audrey! I attend, I attend.

ORLANDO

Is't possible that on so little acquaintance you should like her? That but seeing, you should love her? And loving, woo? And wooing, she should grant? And will you persever to enjoy her?

OLIVER

Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing nor her sudden consenting. But say with me, I love Aliena. Say with her that she loves me. Consent with both that we may enjoy each other; for my father's house, and all the revenue that was Sir Rowland's, will I estate upon you, and here live and die a shepherd.

ORLANDO

Let your wedding be tomorrow. Thither will I invite the Duke and all his contented followers. Go you and prepare your Aliena; -

Aliena giggles

ORLANDO

For look you, here comes my Rosalind.

ROSALIND

God save you, brother.

OLIVER

And you, fair sister.

ROSALIND

O my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear thy heart in a scarf!

ORLANDO

It is my arm.

ROSALIND

I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion.

ORLANDO

Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.

ROSALIND

Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to swoon when he showed me your handkerchief?

ORLANDO

Ay, and greater wonders than that.

ROSALIND

O, I know where you are. Nay, 'tis true. For your brother and my sister 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 they have made a pair of stairs to marriage which they will climb.

ORLANDO

They shall be married tomorrow. But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes! By so much the more shall I tomorrow be at the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I shall think my brother happy in having that he wishes for.

ROSALIND

Why then, tomorrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind?

ORLANDO

I can live no longer by thinking.

ROSALIND

I will weary you no longer then with idle talking. Know of me, for now I speak to some purpose, that I know you are a gentleman of good conceit. Believe then, if you please, that I can do strange things. I have since I was three year old conversed with a magician, most profound in his art and yet not damnable. If you do love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries it out, when your brother marries Aliena shall you marry her. I know into what straits of fortune she is driven and it is not impossible to me, if it appear not inconvenient to you, to set her before your eyes tomorrow, human as she is, and without any danger.

ORLANDO

Speak'st thou in sober meanings?

ROSALIND

By my life I do. Therefore put you in your best array, bid your friends; for if you will be married tomorrow you shall, and to Rosalind if you will. -

Phoebe shrieks

ROSALIND

Oh, look, here comes a lover of mine and a lover of hers.

PHOEBE

Youth, you have done me much ungentleness To show the letter that I writ to you.

ROSALIND

I care not if I have; it is my study To seem despiteful and ungentle to you. You are there followed by a faithful shepherd. Look upon him; love him; he worships you.

PHOEBE

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 Phoebe.

PHOEBE

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, And so am I for Phoebe.

PHOEBE

And I for Ganymede.

ORLANDO

And I for Rosalind.

ROSALIND

And I for no woman.

SILVIUS

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, And so am I for Phoebe.

PHOEBE

And so am I for Ganymede.

ORLANDO

And so am I for Rosalind.

ROSALIND

And so am I for no woman.

PHOEBE

If this be so, why blame you me to love you?

SILVIUS

If this be so, why blame you me to love you?

ORLANDO

If this be so, why blame you me to love you?

ROSALIND

Who do you speak to, 'Why blame you me to love you?'

ORLANDO

To her that is not here nor doth not hear.

ROSALIND

I pray you no more of this, 'tis like the howling of Irish wolves against the moon. I will help you if I can. I would love you if I could. Tomorrow meet me all together. I will marry you, if ever I marry woman, and you shall be married tomorrow. -

Phoebe shrieks

ROSALIND

I will satisfy you, if ever I satisfy man, and you shall be married tomorrow. I will content you, if what pleases you contents you, and you shall be married tomorrow. As you love Rosalind, meet. As you love Phoebe, meet. And as I love no woman, I'll meet. So fare you well. I have left you commands.

SILVIUS

I'll not fail, if I live.

PHOEBE

Nor I.

ORLANDO

Nor I.

TOUCHSTONE

Tomorrow is the joyful day, Audrey. Tomorrow will we be married.

AUDREY

I do desire it with all my heart; and I hope it is no dishonest desire, to desire to be a woman of the world? Ah, here the banished Duke's gentleman

AMIENS

Ah, well met, Monsieur Touchstone.

TOUCHSTONE

By my troth, well met. Come, sit, sit, oh, and a song.

AMIENS

We are for you, sit i'th' middle. It was a lover and his lass With a hey and a ho and a hey nonino That o'er the green cornfield did pass In spring-time, the only pretty ring-time Between the acres of the rye With a hey and a ho and a hey nonino These pretty country folks would lie In spring-time the only pretty ring-time When birds do sing, hey ding a ding ding Sweet lovers love the spring! This carol they began that hour With a hey and a ho and a hey nonino How that a life was but a flower In spring-time, the only pretty ring-time And therefore take the present time With a hey nonino and a hey nonino For love is crowned with the prime In spring-time, the only pretty ring-time When birds do sing, hey ding a ding ding Sweet lovers love Sweet lovers love Sweet lovers love The spring

DUKE SENIOR

Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy Can do all this that he hath promised?

ORLANDO

I sometimes do believe and sometimes do not, As those that fear to hope, and know to fear.

ROSALIND

Patience once more whiles our compact is urged. Your Duke, you say if I bring in your Rosalind You will bestow her on Orlando, here?

DUKE SENIOR

That would I, had I kingdoms to give with her.

ROSALIND

And Orlando, you say you will have her when I bring her?

ORLANDO

That would I, were I of all kingdoms king.

ROSALIND

Phoebe, you say you'll marry me if I be willing?

PHOEBE

That will I, should I die the hour after.

ROSALIND

Yeah, but if you do refuse to marry me You'll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd?

PHOEBE

So is the bargain.

ROSALIND

Silvius, you say that you'll have Phoebe if she will?

SILVIUS

Though to have her and death were both one thing.

ROSALIND

I have promised to make all this matter even. Keep you your word, O Duke, to give your daughter, You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter. Keep you your word, Phoebe, that you'll marry me, Or else, refusing me, to wed this shepherd. Keep your word, Silvius, that you'll marry her If she refuse me; and from hence I go To make these doubts all even.

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. But my good lord, this boy is forest-born And hath been tutored in the rudiments Of many desperate studies by his uncle, Whom, whom he reports to be a great magician, Obscured in circle of this forest.

JAQUES

There is sure another flood toward, and these couples are coming to the ark. Here comes a pair of very strange beasts, which in all tongues are called fools.

TOUCHSTONE

Salutation and greeting to you all.

JAQUES

Good my lord, this is the motley-minded gentleman that I have so often met in the forest. He hath been a courtier, he swears.

laughs

TOUCHSTONE

If any man doubt that, let him put me to my purgation. I have trod a measure; I have flattered a lady; I have been politic with my friend, smooth with mine enemy; I have undone three tailors; I have fought four quarrels and like to have fought one.

JAQUES

And how was that ta'en up?

TOUCHSTONE

Faith, we met and found the quarrel to be upon the seventh cause.

JAQUES

How, seventh cause? Good my lord, like this fellow.

DUKE SENIOR

I like him very well.

TOUCHSTONE

God'ild you, sir, I desire you of the like. I press in here, sir, amongst the rest of the country copulatives, to swear and forswear both as marriage binds and blood breaks;

laughs

TOUCHSTONE

it's a poor virgin, sir, an ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own; a poor humor of mine, sir, to take that that no man else will.

JAQUES

But for the seventh cause, how did you find the quarrel on the seventh cause?

TOUCHSTONE

Upon a lie seven times removed. Bear your body more seeming, Audrey.

chuckles

TOUCHSTONE

As thus, sir. I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier's beard. He sent me word if I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the mind it was. This is called the -retort courteous.' If I sent him word again it was not well cut, he would send me word he cut it to please himself. This is called the -quip modest.' If again it was not well cut, he disabled my judgment. This is called the -reply churlish'. If again it was not well cut, he would answer I spake not true. This is called the -reproof valiant.' If again, it was not well cut, he would say I lie. This is called the -countercheck quarrelsome' and so to the -lie circumstantial' and the -lie direct'.

JAQUES

And how oft did you say his beard was not well cut?

TOUCHSTONE

Well, I durst go no further than the lie circumstantial, then he durst not give me the lie direct; and so we measured swords and parted.

JAQUES

Is this not a rare fellow, my lord? He's as good at anything, and yet a fool.

DUKE SENIOR

He uses his folly like a stalking-horse and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.

clanging on glass

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.

soft processional music

ROSALIND

To you, dear Duke, I give myself, for I am yours. To you, Orlando, I give myself, for I am yours.

DUKE SENIOR

If there be truth in sight, you are my daughter.

ORLANDO

If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind.

PHOEBE

If sight and shape be true, Why then, my love adieu.

ROSALIND

I'll have no father, if you be not he. I'll have no husband, if you be not he. Nor ne'er wed woman, if you be not she. HYMEN Peace, ho. -

overlapping chatter

ROSALIND

I bar confusion. 'Tis I must make conclusion Of these most strange events. Here's eight that must take hands To join in Hymen's bands, If truth holds true contents. You and you no cross shall part. You and you are heart in heart. You to his love must accord Or have a woman to your lord. You and you are sure together As the winter to foul weather. -

Jaques singing

ROSALIND

Wedding is great Juno's crown O blessed bond of board and bed 'Tis Hymen peoples every town High wedlock then be honored Honor, high honor and renown

background speaking, laughter

ROSALIND

To Hymen God of every town Mmm, to Hymen God of every town

DUKE SENIOR

O my dear niece, welcome thou art to me Even daughter; welcome to no less degree.

PHOEBE

I will not eat my word, Silvius, now thou art mine, Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine.

JAQUES

De Boys, Let me have audience for a word or two. I am the second son of old Sir Rowland That bring these tidings to this fair assembly. Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day Men of great worth resorted to this forest, Addressed a power purposely to take His brother here and put him to the sword; And to the skirts of this wild wood he came, Where meeting with an old religious man, After some question with him, was converted Both from his enterprise and from the world,

laughter

JAQUES

His crown bequeathing to his banished brother, And all their lands restored to them That were with him exiled.

joyous laughter

DUKE SENIOR

Oh, welcome, young man. Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding And in this forest let us do those ends That here were well begun and well begot; And after, every of this happy number That have endured shrewd days and nights with us Shall share the good of our returned fortune, According to the measure of their states. And meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity And fall into our rustic revelry. -

cheers

DUKE SENIOR

Yes, play, music! And you, brides and bridegrooms all, With measure heaped in joy to th' measures fall.

JAQUES

Sir, by your patience. If I heard you rightly, Duke Frederick, hath put on a religious life And thrown into neglect the pompous court?

JAQUES DE BOYS

He hath.

sighs

JAQUES

To him will I; out of these convertites There is much matter to be heard and learned.

You to your former honor I bequeath

Your patience and your virtue well deserves it. You, to a love that your true faith doth merit; You, to your land and love and great allies; You, to a long and well-deserved bed; And you, to wrangling, for thy loving voyage Is but for two months victualled. So to your pleasures, I am for other than for dancing measures.

DUKE SENIOR

Stay, Jaques, stay.

JAQUES

To see no pastime, I. What you would have I'll stay to know at your abandoned cave.

DUKE SENIOR

Proceed, proceed! We'll begin these rites As we do trust they'll end, in true delights. -

happy laughter

DUKE SENIOR

-

Rosalind weeping happily

ROSALIND

It is not the fashion to see the lady, the epilogue, but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the Prologue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes, and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, that I am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot insinuate with you on the behalf of a good play. I am not furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not become me. My way is to conjure you, and I'll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you. And I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women [as I perceive by your simpering, none of you hates them], that between you, the women and all else, the play may please. 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.

clapping

clapping and cheering

ROSALIND

Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! That was amazing you guys. Nate, how are you? You had some technical difficulties? How you doing?

Nate

I'm all right.

Brenda

You're amazing! What happened?

I got booted off Zoom at 5

57 pm.

participants laugh

Nate

And then, I had to reboot my computer. And when we started, I couldn't get into the file for the script. -

Brenda exclaims

Nate

So, I didn't have the text in front of me for a while.

Colleen

So you did that mostly off the book?

Nate

Some of it, and then I got it up, and then my computer crashed again, and I got booted off the Zoom again. And so then, I got back in, but again, I didn't have my script. So act one was just a real wild ride, everybody, real wild ride!

Brenda

Oh, my gosh! I had no idea. I knew that you got booted off beforehand because they said, "Brenda, we have to hold and Nate doesn't have a computer," and I was like, "Oh, okay!" and then I thought-- Tim Gittings, you're on call, right, To step in?

Tim

I thought the same thing. Oh, my god! Then, I had no idea that you had any other trouble though.

Nate

Thank you!

everyone laughs

Nate

You are amazing, you all were amazing, but that's amazing. Carey Cannon, I know that you've been looking at questions and--

Carey

I have been, do we want John Langs to join us. Has he joined us? Yes, please, John Langs, are you on?

crowd cheers and applauds

Carey

Hi, John Langs!

John

Hey, Nate, that is the first I heard any of this and it was amazing! That was amazing!

Nate

I'm glad.

John

'Cuz I would not have known that your script was down and, yes, congratulations. Congratulations, everybody! That is, I mean, we're all making this forum together and it is a thrill ride right now. So, I thank you for your courage and bravery. It's just so exciting to watch that come together, cheers.

Carey

Along these lines, I have to say that Bill and Diane asked, "You seemed to know the lines. Were you actually reading?" and, apparently, sometimes you were not actually reading. What's the answer to that, folks? How are you reading those things?

Daniel

Well, in my case, I have the script in front of me which apparently doesn't always help with speaking. So, yeah, the script is on the screen, although, occasionally it serves to help.

Brenda

Does anybody else have any of their little tricks, or are you all just on the screen? I know last--

Colleen

This whole Zoom thing has been really, really different for us. Probably, a bit easier for the younger members, who have taught us a lot. -

laughter

Daniel

Not you, Kelsey.

Colleen

Talking to you, Kelsey! So what we learned is, you know, there are three points of... We have to look, actually, in four different places. So, there's the camera, and when we're looking at our scene partner, we're actually looking at the camera. There are times when John has directed us to look right or left to intimate that the scene partner is there, but all of us have the script just below the camera. So that we can be reading as we go because many of us have not played these roles before and we only had a week to read and rehearse. Actually,

less then a week

five days. So, yeah, we have got the Zoom screen, the script, the camera, and the invisible scene partners.

Carey

One of the questions was how long did you all rehearse, but there's another. Roseanne says, "So impressed that these stage actors "have become this skilled so quickly with this newish media." Any of the rest of you wanna speak to that? Or, Brenda, do you wanna field that?

Brenda

Sure, sure, I mean, Sarah Day, how do you feel about the whole Zoom acting? How different is it? You were wonderful tonight, by the way. -

Sarah

laughs

Brenda

Thank you, that was a nice way to smooth that in.

participants laughing

Brenda

Yes, Zoom is a brand new thing. What? A month and a half, I have been playing around with it. And it's a nice little bridge of a substitute somehow, but it's not like being in the room with all of you and all my friends. Yeah. But it's third-best, seventh-best, I don't know. I am really grateful for the opportunity to be in a Zoom room with y'all. Oh! pressing buttons, oh no!

laughs

Brenda

It is crazy, silly fun and I am really grateful to be able to share stories. Does anybody find it more freeing, just in your room by yourself? Does it feel a little bit like-- you know how actors always say, "I was so good when I was home doing it by myself" When you get to rehearsal and all your plans kinda fall apart sometimes. Does anyone find it freeing in that way at all? Anybody?

Several speaking at once

Brenda

Go, May.

Melisa

I don't think it's a comparable experience. You know, I think you are judging two completely different mediums, and completely different experiences. So, I don't know that I put it that category, but it's definitely a different skill set, which is fun to be like, "Oh! This is how we're doing it" and kind of, I think there's a lot of relinquishing control.

Brenda

Yeah.

Melisa

Because you can't direct your actor friends, no matter how much we want to.

Brenda laughs

Melisa

It is all about what you do yourself, right? And you trust one person, who is John, who is looking on the outside to say, to say, like, "Do it like this," because I think when we work live, we are constantly giving each other feedback, even if it's non-verbal. That's about the kind of energy we're receiving from the other person. Right. So, that just doesn't exist here and I think you pretend that it does, is kind a doing a disservice to the medium we're using, which is completely different and beneficial in its own ways because we can really be right here and that's really cool.

several actors start talking at the same time

Brenda

Kelsey was gonna say something, too.

Kelsey

All I said was, "I got to do the show barefoot."

actors laugh

Brenda

Which we don't do on our stage very much, right?

Tracy

Pajama pants. - Pajama pants.

Brenda

Brian, what were you gonna say?

Brian

I was just gonna say that the strange thing is that we are not looking at our fellow actors. When we're perceived to be connecting with our fellow actors, We're looking at a little dot at the top of our laptops, most of us. So, I have the image of everyone else over to my left, over here, my script underneath, and then, I'm looking into someone's eyes here and that's what's really strange.

Brenda

Right, right. Carey Cannon, what else have you got?

Carey

I was just saying there's a question about editing the text and as we have got John and Eva here, who was our text coach, John was the director. There's a question about-- Dana and Lisa said, "This has given us an opportunity "we don't normally have to follow along "and see how you have edited the text. "We're curious how you have approached both the edits creatively and as storytellers."

Brenda

John?

John

Yeah, totally, I can speak to that. The form is interesting, Shakespeare wrote for four hours outside under the steady light in the middle of the day.

Microsoft Windows boot up tones

John

And that is a very particular form. This is another form and I really felt like its my first foray as a Zoom director and I feel like in this particular format you have to come because you really, really want this story. There's so many distractions just sitting around your desk and I wanted to condense the story into a time and a space that I felt like you could hang with. So, in my mind it was, Let's get to the most efficient way to tell this story with most heart possible and see, if we let a lot of the ornamentation that Shakespeare puts on, which I love, which is incredibly valuable and nobody does it better, but let's let that fall away and make it an efficient machine of storytelling about the nature of these concentric circles of love. That's the story I wanted to tell. We're all kind of in alienation and isolation right now and I think this story has a lot to say about a reset. That everybody is confronted with love in a particular way right now and resetting their lives and this story speaks to that so I wanted to get to that essence and that's what lead the cut for me.

Brenda

Eva, how did you help out with that cut? How are you doing Eva? Good job!

everyone laughs

Eva

Thank you, thank you, all, for killing it. I think I was just trying to, as John said, help with the core story and trying to get that across. I was sometimes brutal with my cuts, and then, people would say, "No, you can't be that brutal," and then sometimes they were just tiny little snips, but we tried to keep the shape of the storytelling as much as we could for this format. That was pretty much the goal.

Colleen

I bet that during the plague, when the theaters were shut down, if Zoom existed, Shakespeare would have been all over it.

everyone laughs

Brenda

We'll have to ask him that sometime. I have to know, on the Post-It notes, whose idea was the Post-It notes?

Nate

I think it was John, wasn't it? I don't know.

Brenda

Was it John?

John

It was the first image-- you know, I have to-- It was wonderful to watch the first reading because I have a three-year-old daughter, and oftentimes I am bereft of anything to do with her, but I have bunch of objects in the room and she loves a good story. And so, I'll start to pick an object and that object will become a spaceship for her and it may be a saucer we have or some kind of ornament that's in our room, and I tell stories with that. When we landed in Zoom for the first time and I saw Nate and he was just reading in his kitchen by the end of that first reading, I thought, "Well, of course, "Orlando is in the kitchen. Of course, he is." What are the objects? I mean, part of the fun of this is the ingenuity of the actors. As a director, you know, usually you get set designers, costume designers, lighting, make up. All I had was these wonderfully creative actors who kept bringing something and the only thought I had was, how are we gonna do the letters all over the forest?" And, how are we gonna do the wrestling?

Brenda

Oh, yeah!

John

And those two things were primary, but Post-It notes, everybody has on their desk, around their computer. So, I felt like if we can depart through there, then I think a world of imagination kinda unfolds for us.

Carey

There were some 'Behind the Scenes' questions, some kind of stage trick questions. Roseanne says, "How many monitors? What are the stage managers doing?" Somebody else commented on the props being passed from actor to actor. Cathy asked about the props.

John

Mm-hmm. Well, we talked a little bit about, sort of, you know, I feel like we're at the very very beginning of the Zoom generation of doing theater and years from now-- I hope, I hope it doesn't last too long, honestly, because I'd love to get back in the room breathing with you, but if it does, years from now, we'll look back and go, like "Oh, remember when we used to pass props that way? Wasn't that super fun?" But we couldn't resist. You know, it's a little bit of stage magic that we could do. and for what it was worth, I felt, like, super fun and playful and creative.

Carey

And the actors moving entrances and how people popped up when they were needed, or what stage management did to manipulate the view? There were couple of questions that lead to that.

John

Jacki.

Brenda

Yeah, Jacki and Evelyn.

actors cheer

Jacki

We have two stage managers, who are "behind the scenes" right now. I am the person who is following along in the script. I am playing the sound cues, I am making sure that people are getting renamed to their correct characters. So,

my setup

I have two computers here. This is my first computer that I'm on Zoom and then, my second computer, where I have my script and my sound program and another Zoom. And then, our other stage manager, Evelyn Matten, whose voice you heard at the beginning, she is sort of our backstage manager. So, if something goes wrong, like Nate Burger in Chicago gets kicked off of his Internet, she's the person that we rely on to solve the problem as quickly as possible with Nate. So, it's sort of like I'm the stage manager that's in the booth and Evelyn is the stage manager who's backstage, backstage during the reading.

Brenda

Awesome, awesome! Any more questions from the audience?

Carey

Yeah, Sherry Lundell-- Hey, Sherry!-- said, "Have you--"

Brenda

Yeah?

Carey

Just a really interesting question... "How have you found the words in solitude, "as active in a different way than a stage movement? "I mean, the words move and suggest movement. "We're laughing in a new way at new revelations. "It's interesting 'hearing' a play. "What are your-- "As performers, how is that change your moving the story?"

Tracy

You know, when we put together a play and we get to be together in a same room, we usually spend the first week working this way. We all do our read-through around the table. Almost every director likes to start with the read-through of the play. And even though we don't know our lines yet, we've all been looking at the script and studying the script and trying out ideas. So, in a way, this is similar to that 'cause we generally like to bring ourselves to that first read and make it as alive as-- We've been chomping at the bit to do it. So, it's our chance to do it, ah, reading it. So, it is sort of like that, feels similar. I mean, we're embodying the play as best we can seated. So, it feels similar to that. It's not quite the same 'cause our energies aren't in the same room and we don't hear each other laugh at each other's lines, or, you know, you can feel energy, as you know as audience members. When you're in an audience, you feel that united energy and we feel it also in a room. That's the element that I'm sure we all miss. You know, that electric energy of person to person.

Carey

There was a question about including the Zoom audience, whether there was any thought about being able to see the watchers? -

Tracy sighs woefully

Brenda

It'd be so nice to see the watchers when they create Zoom for theater, like a whole new platform that we can do that, that would be awesome. But it's so interesting 'cause even we can do the thing where we're like, "Oh, wait, I'm not on camera; Wait, I'm off-camera," or come into a scene that you weren't supposed to be in. It just so precarious right now to try to keep it straight-forward. I see-- To speak to what you said, Tracy, as a person who's watched you guys do cold readings all the time-- I mean, I'm obsessed with cold readings because we do some internally to look for plays in the future. Now, we turned some of those into "Winter Words," because, you guys, there's something amazingly exciting, I think it's even like extra live theater because when you come to see a performance, it's been rehearsed. It's been worked on and worked on and worked on, but when you guys sit down the first time and you're reading something, there's a whole another level of the creative juices

that's happening

the kind of risk that's being taken, the kind of a boldness and, like, bravery. And so, there's just something about you guys reading a play that you don't have a lot of time with, which is terrifying to you all. Who doesn't mind cold readings? Who doesn't mind sitting down and reading a play publicly? Any of you? Any of you not mind it? Tracy doesn't mind, Nate doesn't mind, Tim.

Gavin

If I add something?

Brenda

Yeah.

Gavin

About just the reading aspect of this on Zoom? One of the things that is affected very deeply is rhythm and timing because we can't overlap lines like we would in the same room with each other, or else it would be like a mosh of sound and there'll be a delay. So, I feel that rhythmically this format changes how we read. It's slightly different than being in the same room as far as rhythm and timing and tempo is concerned.

Brenda

Right, right.

Kelsey

I also just wanna say, when we did this a couple of years ago, I played Phoebe and Melisa played Rosalind, and I can't help but feel a huge melancholy difference between acting those comic scenes with her and getting up in her stuff, and being boxed into this little machine when she's across the street at her house.

Brenda laughs

Kelsey

There's something really blue about that that I can't just get past, but at the same time, you can't do anything but be grateful.

But it's definitly different. - Brenda

Yeah.

Joe

Street-- street video! That's what we need to do.

We need to-- - Brenda

Street video, Joe? There's Joe. For all of you, that's Joe Cerqua, our composer. Well done, Joe!

actors clap and cheer

We need to-- - Brenda

Talk a little bit about how weird this was, Joe. Is this the first time you've done a Zoom production?

Joe

It's the first time-- I've been doing online stuff now for the last couple of months. This was the first time I-- we attempted this through Zoom. I've been doing Zoom classes with my students and learned a lot.

Yeah. - Joe

Yeah.

Carey

I wanted to, if we had a second, there are two young actors

that Tim Gittings directed in this play

Clare and Kayley, who played as Audrey and Phoebe, who joined us and were excited to be able to watch. -

Brenda laughs

that Tim Gittings directed in this play

That's awesome! Anybody else?

Tim

Thank you so much for watching, guys! I have Audrey's goat here, by the way.

actors laugh

Daniel

Brenda?

Brenda

Yeah? This is great. I love the format and we're always making art, but I hope we still recognize that there is nothing like seeing an actor in a beautiful costume, standing on an extraordinarily designed and constructed set outside, under the stars. I mean, this is us desperately trying to get at a piece of that. We're lucky, but those carpenters and our costume... Oh, yeah! Just so many people go into making this thing beautiful. This is just us doing barely what we do because the whole package is so extraordinary and so, we feel very lucky and privileged and if you meet a carpenter or a seamstress or a ticket holder or someone up there still pulling mustard, please hug them and tell them we love them so much. Yes, yes, I'm gonna say thank you to everybody, that I do realize that this is kind of like bread when we're starving. You know, this isn't a whole meal. And I-- Is that a terrible analogy? But I do-- We all miss that. We all know what it takes to put a play on. We all know it, we do, and I hope that the audience, I'm sure that they miss that, too. And I just think this is one way that we can just... just put something out there for everyone to have a couple of hours of respite from what's going on, but yeah, thank you, D.D., for mentioning that. We miss that.

Joe

Folks, hire a lighting designer now, if you can, for the upcoming Christmas season, or whatever you are doing.

Brenda

Oh, yeah, yup, yup. - They need work. Everybody needs work right now, don't they? Yes. Any more questions, Carey Cannon?

Carey

We have lots of folks just thanking us for the experience. "Grateful to be able to see you all, to be able to see your houses, to get close to your faces." Lots of comments on that. Some questions about, how this is different from "Winter Words," and I think we talked about how it is different virtually, but it feels a little like that. Brenda?

Brenda

Yeah, it does feel a little like that. It really does. My phone blows up when we start these. I get all of these people texting me. And Kim Rhodes sends her love. - Oh! I wanna just read quickly what she said, just one text she sent me. She said... she said-- I can't find it now.

Carey

Keira Fromme compliments the wrestling and shadow boxing and Jimmy's biceps, just to get some-- the sublime to the ridiculous. -

actors laugh

Carey

Thank you, Keira.

Brenda

Kim Rhodes said, "This is everything. "I am totally crying. This is how artists do." So, she was just-- she had just caught-- She was late getting on and that's what was happening all night, is that, you know, it was very different to do Shakespeare than it was to do the first one, right, Colleen, right, D.D.? I mean, this was very different to do the Shakespeare and we were wondering, I mean, John and I talked about if it would hold, right, John? I mean, if it would play on this format, and it did beautifully, I think.

John

Yeah, you guys were amazing, it was great.

Brenda

Yeah, you guys were amazing, that's why. That's why it held. All right, is that it, Carey Cannon?

Carey

That covers many of them. I mean, yes, yes, that's it. -

Brenda laughs

Carey

You just addressed that it's different with the Shakespeare

because there was one question

For those of you who did it last week, for some of you it's your first time, but for those of you who did it last week, how was it different having so many more characters on-stage, in air quotes, with you? Did it make more complicated?

Tracy

We had to really time entrances sometimes. Entrances being, like I had written, typed into my script on the screen wait for Melisa to get on screen before you click on screen, things like that. Because somebody's outside eye, not ours, could see where we lined up on the screen and at one point, Rosalind speaks to more than one person and John wanted her to be able to do this and this and this and this, so if we clicked at the wrong time, we were gonna mess that up for her. So, you know, it just involved a little bit more direction, right?

laughs

Brenda

Yes, Zoom staging, Zoom staging.

Tracy

Staging, staging, if you can call it that.

Brenda

Well, we're gonna learn a lot. We learned a lot and we are gonna keep learning over the next couple of weeks. When we get to "Julius Caesar" where there's, like, 89 characters. -

actor cheers 'Whoo hoo!'

Brenda

I know-- That's gonna be a whole another world. I have to just say this to everybody, you will never not have the picture of D.D. taking his shirt off like that out of your mind. -

laughter

Brenda

It will be burned in your mind.

I won't. - Tracy

You're welcome!

Joe

It made me question choices that I've made in my life, I'll tell you that. -

everyone laughs

Brenda

All right, you guys, I love you guys! Thank you so much. Thank you, audience, for staying with us. We appreciate you so much. We'll see you next week. Thank you! -

overlapping 'thank you's

Announcer

Funding for APT's "Out of the Woods" is provided by Boardman Clark Law Firm, Arcadia Books, Dane Arts, Nancy A. McDaniel, Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, Orange Tree Imports, Wilson Creek Pottery, Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming, and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.