As you look through the images and photographs from past productions of As You Like It, think about:
- How the contrasting worlds of the court and the forest have been shown in different productions. Designers often use certain colours and fabrics to suggest a more colourful and free world of the forest compared to a darker, more restricted court environment. How true is this of the 2013 production and the 2019 production?
- How the freedom of the forest has been shown on stage. In the 2013 production, for example, director Maria Aberg was inspired by summer festivals, like Glastonbury, comparing the adventure of festival-going to the journeys of self discovery the characters make in the play. How effective do you think this more modern design is?
- How differently Celia and Rosalind would be dressed at court, compared with how we see them in the forest. Are their court clothes more restrictive or formal?
- How the banished Duke and his followers have changed visibly during their lives in the forest. Would they still have remnants of their court clothes, or would they be fully dressed with materials from the forest?
How would you choose to stage these settings and what choices would you make to help show the function of the court and give the audience a sense of what might happen there? It might help to take another look at Act 1 Scene 3 in performance in the Key Scenes section to see how one production looked at the world of the court.