The Spokane Shakespeare Society is bringing one of The Bard's comedies to Corbin Park July 18, then moving to Manito and Riverfront Parks in the two successive weekends, Thursdays through Sundays.
SPR’s Owen Henderson sat down with the director and lead actor of S3's "As You Like It" to talk about the challenges of outdoor theater, the performance of gender and why the play is still relevant to today’s audiences.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
OWEN HENDERSON: Director Abby Burlingame, for folks who don't know the show, give us the elevator pitch.
ABBY BURLINGAME: "As You Like It" is one of Shakespeare's comedies, and so we have a whole array of lovers, but at the center of it is Rosalind, who is banished to the Forest of Arden by the Duke, her uncle, and she decides to disguise herself as a boy.
Now, disguised as a boy, she runs into a man she's in love with in the forest and convinces him to woo her while she's in disguise as if she were his love.
So we have a lot of tomfoolery; a lot of gender shenanigans; and general Shakespearean comedy, delightful mishaps, and antics.
OH: And so Abby Constable, you are playing Rosalind.
ABBY CONSTABLE: Yes.
OH: So how are you approaching this character? How do you connect with her?
Well, I love the character. She is probably one of the most dynamic characters I've ever played, which is — of course, that makes it more challenging and a little scary.
But what I love the most about Rosalind, the thing I connect the most about, is that she is very passionate.
She's a little more outgoing and a little more confident, I think, than I've ever been. I mean, to just come up with the crazy schemes that she does. So in the process of creating this version of the character, Abby and I have talked a lot about why she does the things that she does.
And she just has a lot of passion and she cares so much about the people in her life. And she's been through a lot of hardship. So she's just taking this as an opportunity to pursue what she wants.
She's just so fun and energetic. And I really, playing outside, you have to be energetic. And so it's a great motivation to just keep plowing forward and discover all the quirky, weird things about Rosalind.
OH: What are some of the unique challenges that come with doing a show outside, especially a show that moves location?
AB: So we're in a different park each weekend of our run. And so that definitely, that has its challenges. I mean, it's anything you can think about, anything you can name: you know, the heat, the bugs, the interruption, like the sound — although we have a fantastic tech person, Alex Blackmon, who has set up a really great sound system for us.
So you will be able to hear people for sure. But I see the challenges as opportunities, because there's nothing quite like sitting outside. And especially in this production, we have incorporated some of those — what in the past have been interruptions — and we've made them characters in the show.
And so we really tried to get a show that, you know, is integrated with its surroundings, where maybe you're not quite sure if a certain piece that's happening in the background is actually part of the show or not, until maybe that character comes in later or doesn't come in later because it was a random person walking their dog.
So trying to incorporate the — make the challenges into the joys of doing it. And as far as traveling around, I mean, we love it because we get to take the theater to the people.
We get to go, 'You may not know you're going to end up watching a Shakespeare show, but you're out on your evening walk and we're in the middle of the park that's right next to your house and you can sit down and watch the show.'
OH: You mentioned this before: One of the tropes we see a lot in Shakespearean comedies is this dressing as other genders and mistaken identities.
Abby Burlingame, you mentioned that Rosalind, dressed as a man, persuades Orlando to woo her — as far as Orlando knows, another man. The queerness inherent in that isn't even subtext.
How much have the LGBTQ themes been something that you and the cast have discussed in rehearsals?
AB: I think it's come up a lot because we are constantly asking, particularly when Orlando, who is Rosalind's love, is, you know, we see a tiny bit of their attraction when I guess they are performing the gender that expect to be, society expects them to be.
But then the bulk of their actual courtship is — what we're essentially seeing in terms of performance — two men on stage wooing each other.
And so we've talked, I think, a fair bit about the queerness of that and how much, like especially with Jared McDougall, who's our actor playing Orlando, about how that interaction, like: Are there moments when Orlando's attracted to Rosalind as a man? Is it the person? Is it the same?
That's come up a lot because, yeah, we're constantly like — Shakespeare gives you these characters. He doesn't really give you a lot of motivation for why they do what they do. So it's up to us to try and find that. And so I think that's one of the ways that we talked about it and navigated it.
But it really is, especially with our concept, we're exploring the performance of gender in different eras, even to not just Elizabethan or modern day, but in both, and how we're all kind of performing for everyone at all points in time.
OH: And for you as the actor?
AC: One of the things we've talked about a lot with Rosalind, you know, she disguises herself as Ganymede in order to escape from her — originally, it's her uncle, but in our version, she's escaping from her aunt.
And we, you know, we talked about how once they're in the forest, there's really no reason for Rosalind to continue to be Ganymede. She could become Rosalind again, but she chooses not to. She stays as Ganymede.
And for me as the actor, I see that as when she is Ganymede, when she is playing a boy, she's more herself. She's able to express herself more freely.
She's able to speak to this man that she's in love with and get to actually know him as a person. So the fact that entering this new gender identity gives Rosalind this freedom that she's been craving and lets her be her true self, it's a great focus for the show.
OH: The question that I hear tossed around in theater circles a lot is 'Why this show? Why now?' So I am going to pose that question to you. I'll start with the director. What makes this show suited to this particular moment?
AB: For me, in this show, we're talking about performance. We just talked about gender identity, performance of gender. Everyone in this play is performing for each other all the time. And so to me, this was the right play to do in a park because we could expand essentially off the stage.
We could really say, 'There's no boundaries to our performance.'
And in fact, this is the show that has the very famous 'All the world's stage' speech. So the text itself is very much in conversation with this idea of performing. So that was what excited me as a director.
I was like, 'I want to bring to this particular place, which is the parks of Spokane, a show that might be less traditional than what people have seen before.'
AC: "As You Like It" is one of those shows that you don't get to see a lot. Normally when people think of Shakespeare shows where a woman is dressed as a man, we think of Twelfth Night. And I think that show, you know, it does a good job of talking about queerness and gender identity. But this show just takes it that much further.
In this show, we get to see Orlando falling in love with this person who, in his mind, is a man, and he's in love with Rosalind. And I think it just opens up a bigger discussion about gender and queerness and in a way that is fun and open and not judgmental and everybody's just happy. And it's just a great, fun show.
And I think everybody who wants to go out in Shakespeare — maybe is intimidated by Shakespeare — this is a really great show for people to just come and experience, even if you don't catch every plot line that's going on — because there's a lot happening in the show — you can enjoy it.
You can feel like you're a part of the story. And we've doing a lot more this year with trying to make Shakespeare accessible. We've got some great people on our team.
Joseph Selle has also created a video series on our Facebook page to kind of help introduce the show to people. So it's a great leaping-off point for people who have no experience with Shakespeare or are unfamiliar with Shakespeare, but they want to learn more. They want to come and enjoy Shakespeare. This is a great show for that.
OH: Thank you both so much for taking the time to chat with me.
AC: Thank you so much.
AB: Thank you.
