Actors' Thoughts on Gender in AYLI

Noelle Johnson (Rosalind)

So What’s the Deal With Shakespeare and Gender?

Gender back in Shakespeare’s day and age was a lot different than the way that we view it now, and a lot of the major themes in As You Like It come from the way that gender played a role in society both in Shakespeare’s time and in modern-day. To fully understand the journey that the characters of As You Like It go on, it’s essential to have a basic understanding of how gender factors into their lives.

If you’re at all familiar with the history of Shakespeare’s works (or the 1998 classic Shakespeare in Love), you might know that in the Elizabethan era, only men were allowed to be actors. Even though the ruler of England was a woman, and a very liberated woman at that, acting and writing were very male-centric fields. In the original productions of all of Shakespeare’s works, older men would play the male roles, and teenage boys would play the female roles. The young boys who would play these roles typically were smaller, had unchanged voices, and more feminine faces. From a distance, it was hard to tell exactly what gender they were.

Women were banned from acting primarily because the craft of acting was thought to be a vulgar profession to have. Even though actors performed for the lowliest of peasants and the wealthiest of monarchs alike, the profession was one of the most base and profane things a person could choose to do with their life. Women who mastered the art of illusion (such as dressing up in a costume or pretending to be someone else) were thought of as witches, harlots, and people of loose morals who generally shouldn’t be allowed in proper society.

In As You Like It specifically, the actor playing Rosalind even addresses himself to the audience at the end of the play through the epilogue. Epilogues in Shakespeare’s day were written to be a break of the fourth wall, where the actor playing whatever role says the epilogue directly addresses the audience and gives a few final words on the play they just witnessed. As You LIke It’s epilogue addresses both the men and the women in the audience, and asks them to love one another. Rosalind’s line “...were I 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,” is a reference to the actor’s gender in traditional productions, in which the male actor playing Rosalind acknowledges that he is a man and says that he would kiss all the men in the audience if he were indeed a woman.

Cross-Dressing, Masculinity, and More

One of the biggest moments of transformation that Rosalind has in the play is when she makes the life-altering decision to dress as a man in the forest of Arden. She puts on the persona of Ganymede and she turns into a rugged, assertive, badass who can handle whatever the forest throws at her. But why does she do this? Celia decides to stay a woman in the woods and does perfectly fine, so why is Roz being so dramatic about the whole cross-dressing thing?

In our production, back before the quarantine when we were still planning on doing a live production on Interlochen’s campus, we crafted the world of the Court as a place strictly divided by gendered lines. Rosalind’s mother, the Old Duke, was banished and replaced by the oppressive New Duke, who mandates that the women in the court be women and the men in the court be men. The women of the court were better seen than heard, and it’s because of this that Rosalind takes on a silent, mournful attitude. She goes from the freedom of being the heir to a female-led monarchy to being a subordinate to a sexist and power-drunken tyrant. That’s enough to make anyone shut down.

When she and Celia craft the plan to escape to the forest after being banished, Rosalind makes a good point on just how safe it is to be an unprotected woman out in the middle of nowhere. “Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold,” she says. And she’s absolutely right. There were no repercussions for sexual assault back then, and should she end up at the hands of scoundrels in the forest, there wasn’t much Roz could have done to defend herself. So she makes the decision to take back the power that her mother’s banishment stripped her of and dons the male persona of Ganymede.

Rosalind’s Gender Through a Modern Lens

When we talk about the end of As You Like It, something that often comes up is Rosalind’s decision to remain in her pants and tunic when she reveals herself to Orlando, her mother, and the rest of the Forresters. She’s finally figured herself out, is freed of the inner turmoil she was undergoing, and gets to marry the love of her life. So why does she still wear the outfit of a man?

The way we look at gender has vastly changed since the play was written in 1603. Being transgender, genderqueer, and nonbinary has become more widely accepted and even celebrated across the country and in various other nations. Today, we introduce ourselves along with our pronouns, freely express our gender presentation, and live our best, most independent lives no matter what we identify as. Genderqueer, transgender, and nonbinary people have always existed, even in Shakespeare’s time, and just now are coming to the forefront of popular media.

Every production and every actor playing Rosalind will have a slightly different answer to this question, but here is the one that I give to you: Rosalind stays wearing pants at the end of the show because that is simply what she feels most comfortable wearing. Yes, she marries a man, yes she does get to call herself a woman again, but the power that Rosalind finds in her Ganymede alias is something that she decides not to give up, even after deciding to reveal herself fully to Orlando.

I myself identify somewhere on the genderqueer spectrum, and Rosalind’s journey through gender roles has always fascinated me. Getting to explore that is one of the reasons why I’ve loved diving into this part so much. Circling back to the epilogue, the line “were I a woman..” has a very different meaning when it comes out of my mouth than when it was said in the past by both male actors and female actors playing this part. I speak the epilogue to the audience not as Rosalind, but as me, Noelle. And through that line, I get to come out to my audience. Not just as a gay, genderqueer sorta-kinda woman, but most importantly, as myself.

Gender in As You Like It is in a lot of ways, what carries the plot forward. Without the oppression at the court or the uncertainty Rosalind feels in her own skin, there is no Ganymede, no connection with Orlando, no love poems on trees, and no quadruple wedding at the end of everything. And while Rosalind can be looked at in a myriad of different ways, here is how I choose to see her: Rosalind is an amalgamation of everything wonderful there is from all over the various spectrums of gender. She transcends gender itself. She is herself, nothing more and nothing less. That is the point that this entire show is trying to make. Gender, love, life, religion, sex, family, friendship, loneliness, death, these are all things that we have to grow with. The things that make us who we are are ours and ours alone, and at the end of the day, the only approval we need comes from within us. So be a boy. Be a girl. Be both. Be neither. Be something in between. You have the freedom and the right to express it all, whoever you may be, exactly as you like it.

Sexuality and Shakespeare

In our production of As You Like It, we explore the idea of being an outsider. This is represented in the contradiction between the highly gendered and oppressive court and the freeing, musical, and alluring forest of Arden, and is also shown through the character of Celia.

The outsiders gather in the forest of Arden, led by Rosalind’s mother Duke Senior. In our production, we view her band of merry men as people who were oppressed by the court and either were forced to leave or felt they needed to leave because of their differences. Those differences could include a range of sexuality, gender, and disability. As a woman in power, Duke Senior was forced out of her position in the court, but was followed lovingly by the people who understood her struggles. In the Forrester scenes, one would have been able to see few loving couples amongst the crowd, including same-gendered pairings.

In this production, I made a character choice to portray Celia as a queer woman, shown through her desires for both Rosalind and Oliver. As an actor, I had to find out for myself what her background was with the characters she was surrounded by, and both Noelle, the actress who plays Rosalind, and I established a strong relationship between the two girls from early childhood. Celia’s mother had passed, and her father was not the most loving, paternal figure in her life, so she soon viewed Rosalind as the person she felt closest with and who she was most devoted to. Of course, I’m not saying familial trauma spurred her sexuality, but because she grew so faithful to Rosalind, the love slowly grew into something more romantic. This can be shown by how people outside of them see their relationship and the dialogue between Rosalind and Celia within the piece.

When first introducing the characters, Charles describes Celia as someone who “so loves [Rosalind] that she would have followed her exile or have died to stay behind her”. The trope of star-crossed lovers within Shakespeare often ends with death, and Celia is described as similar to one by a person within the court that has never met her, which shows how profound and obvious her feelings must be to the court, even if they don’t see it as romantic. Duke Frederick sees the relationship between the two women, and views it as dangerous. He sees that Celia is willing to do anything for Rosalind, even standing aside while she takes the spotlight within the court, and decides to end their relationship once and for all. After describing her love and need for Rosalind in detail to her father, Duke Frederick calls her a fool repeatedly. I think this is intentional on Shakespeare’s part. It is as if Duke Frederick refuses to acknowledge both the lengths his daughter would go for Rosalind and what the root of her love might be.

When I first read through the play, I genuinely couldn’t imagine a world in which Celia doesn’t have romantic feelings for Rosalind. As a queer woman, I saw so much of myself in this character. Something I, personally, can speak towards is the amount of things you would perform for someone who you were not raised to love as much as you do. The dedication and protection of Rosalind by Celia means so much more than friendship. This is shown through her willingness to sacrifice for Rosalind and insecurity about Orlando. This woman sacrifices so much just for Rosalind, including her royal position, her identity, and her own mental health just to protect Rosalind and make her life as easy and loving as it could possibly be. There are one too many scenes where she builds up Rosalind from scratch after yet another hardship. Celia is selfless in that sense, when she sees Rosalind in trouble she is immediately at the rescue. Throughout the play, we can see Rosalind’s dependency on Celia wane when she emerges as a man and puts most of her attention towards Orlando. Celia begins to doubt their relationship, and takes any opportunity she can to sow seeds of doubt about Orlando in Rosalind’s brain. In my opinion, a platonic relationship would not contain so much jealousy towards specific romanticized aspects of Orlando, like his lips or the way he attained Rosalind’s love with his “brave verses… brave words… and brave oaths”. In Shakespeare’s Act 3 Scene 3, I believe Celia professes her love to Rosalind one last time, a last ditch effort to gain her love back from Orlando. When she doesn’t receive the answer she desperately wants, she begins to allow herself to let Rosalind go. I think her sexuality and romantic love for Rosalind makes her a better and deeper character, with more to give to the audience.

However, this does not discount her love for Oliver, as there is also a genuine

connection between them. Whilst watching Rosalind and Orlando’s love connection blossom in the forest from the background, unnoticed by the lovers, she begins to accept her one-sided love, and realize that she can do better for herself. Although there are very little scriptural cues given as to how the romance blossoms between Oliver and Celia, us as the actors decided that we were drawn to each other because of both looks and our air of maturity and class, which is something we both have because of our upbringing. Oliver also is very smart, tells stories beautifully, and shows that he has gone through a change for the better. All of these traits drew Celia to him, just as Rosalind’s traits had previously.

Shakespeare had written this character in a time when the LGBT community was definitely not accepted and shown in art. There is evidence that Shakespeare himself had a male lover, and so it is entirely possible that he could have purposely chosen words that may imply a relationship. He was an incredibly smart person, so if he had written about queer characters, it would naturally be very well hidden. Another thing that is worth mentioning is that actors during Shakespeare’s time were men, so no matter which roles they were playing that might have a romantic relationship, it would be queer in a way. In some productions of As You Like It, there are various ways of showing Ganymede and Orlando’s relationship. For example, some portray Orlando as falling in love with both Rosalind and her male persona, which would then imply that Orlando is bisexual. There are also some productions that include a kiss, like ours, and that is something that the director can choose to place where he feels is necessary within the piece. However, because there are no stage directions in Shakespeare’s text, there is much interpretation that can be perceived by the reader or director.

Sexuality within Shakespeare’s As You Like It is entirely up to interpretation, but I hope this shed some light on how we unabashedly approached the topic.

Toxic Masculinity is a term we hear thrown around quite a lot in this day and age, but for the amount the term arises, not very many people know what it means. Essentially it is the social stereotype of masculinity that enforces dominance, stoicism, and aggressiveness, which causes more harm than help to the mental health of many, men and women.

So if toxic masculinity exists, isn’t there an equivalent “toxic femininity”? That is a somewhat stigmatized topic, and many are debating as to its existence. This would be the socialization that enforces an emotional, quiet, almost helpless stereotype on women, causing just as many problems in the mental health of those that are affected by it.

Both of these concepts, regardless of how in debate they are at this current time, can trap people brought up under these norms in a certain unhealthy mindset that can limit their abilities as members of society, and as depressing as it may sound, can trap them in this closed off state, which can lead to these humans never seeing the humanity at the core of others and unfortunately themselves. Leaving them stuck in these beyond unhealthy mental states, with no way to reach out because that is also just as frowned upon in these behaviors. The most obvious example of this is the idea engrained in toxic masculinity that “men cannot show emotion”, limiting their expression, never teaching them how to express themselves emotionally, which can permanently scar.

Many of the ways these unhealthy norms are enforced are in entertainment and information we all consume, one does not need to look far to find these “hyper masculine and feminine” stereotypes in the media they consume. Look no further than the protagonists of recent films toted as role models, many television personalities, novels, news, these ideals are everywhere.

In As You Like It, these norms are present and taken to a 10 in the court. The characters in the court lean so far into these ideals that they end up limiting themselves, not truly communicating between each and every person in the ways they could were these ideals not engrained in them. The court is directly contrasted by the other duke in the Forest of Arden, where she and her “comates, brothers in exile” blur the lines of sexuality, gender, and live without these norms, working together as one complete entity, free to express themselves however needed, because they have been removed from the court, having to find their own way.

I encourage you while you listen to our production to bear these ideas in your mind, see when the toxicity is present in full, and when it disappears in full. When do Rosalind and Orlando get stuck in these? When are they free? What frees them? How present do you find these ideas, and who are the main contributors? No one person is at fault, but many fall victim, and we are all responsible to help rid us of these extremities.