Shakespeare Magazine 07

As You Like It
finding the perfect Rosalind. Discussing the
search, Attenborough recalls: “I actually said
at one point, ‘Michael, we shouldn’t do this
play, if we don’t have a brilliant Rosalind’.”
Luckily for audiences, they found one in
Zoe Waites.
The casting wasn’t exactly chance,
though. Waites and Attenborough first
worked together in 1998, when he cast her
as the titular heroine in the RSC’s Romeo
and Juliet. Even then, at 22, she displayed
the emotional bravery that would manifest
in Rosalind.
“She is absolutely fearless, particularly,
emotionally fearless,” says Attenborough.
“The more you stretch her, the more she
likes it.”
Both Attenborough and Waites are
originally from the UK, so this production
had the additional challenge of bringing
them to a city and a country far from home.
“It was great fun, being in a rehearsal
room with him outside of our comfort
zone,” says Waites. “There was something
“Now I am in
Arden!” Rosalind,
Celia (Adina Verson)
and Touchstone
(Andrew Weems)
rough it in the forest.
very liberating about it for both of us.”
As I mentioned, this production had
me weeping at the end. While it is not
uncommon for Shakespeare to make me
cry, generally that emotion occurs during
tragedies, or merely manifests through a
subtle mistiness in the eyes. The emotional
punch of this comedy, however, came
through the vulnerability of the characters.
Before the main action of the play,
Rosalind and Orlando (Andrew Veenstra)
shared a moment of grief on stage – since,
as described by Attenborough, they are
“two people in the depths of despair”.
The actors created this tragic
vulnerability because their director freed
them from the burden of comedy.
“On day one,” Michael Attenborough
explains, “I said to the company: ‘I hereby
am giving you all absolute, unqualified
permission not to be funny. I don’t want
anyone straining to be funny’.”
Speaking of characters straining for laughs,
Attenborough couldn’t resist sharing an
SHAKESPEARE magazine 33