Should the sun come out to stay, the Slayton Arboretum will be, like all the world, a stage, and students shall perform “As You Like It,” Shakespeare’s play.
Junior Liz Whalen and sophomore Phoebe Kalthoff are directing Shakespeare in the Arb’s production this year, with performances finals weekend, May 3 and 4. They cast “As You Like It” before Christmas break and have been rehearsing throughout this semester. The play is a pastoral comedy set in a forest — making the arboretum an especially fitting stage — which follows the adventures of Rosalind, played by junior Meredith Caton, as she, disguised as a man, flees her uncle into the arms of Orlando, played by senior Whittaker Dunn. Rosalind, pretending to be a boy, pretends to be a girl to help Orlando. Various characters flit in and out, and hilarity ensues.
Caton and Dunn aren’t just playing love-interests on the stage; they are dating in real life. For Caton, that is an opportunity to relax, not worry about developing chemistry, and just be comfortable to develop their characters. Dunn sees it as a senior gift.
“Liz asked me in Jitters, ‘are you going to be OK acting opposite Meredith?’ and I said, ‘yeah,’ and she said, ‘that won’t be awkward?’ and I said, ‘no.’ And then I walked away and thought about it and I should have really said, ‘I don’t want anyone else acting opposite of Meredith,’ because I don’t,” he said. “So it’s been a real blessing; what a great gift for my final year, final semester, here.”
Beyond the intersection of fact and fiction, “As You Like It” continues a longstanding tradition of student-produced Shakespeare, something that Whalen and Kalthoff both value.
“It sounds trite, but I think I speak for both of us when I say this has been really, really special to do,” Whalen said. “We both grew up watching Shakespeare in the Arb. We both remember seeing the very first production ever and seeing Hamlet dying on the Arb steps. Those were really powerful images that we received as children. So that’s, I think, why it means so much for us to be faithful to Shakespeare’s images and try to bring them to life in a delightful and beautiful way. We are giving a gift that we have received and benefited from so many times through the years.”
Kalthoff appreciates that the tradition of Shakespeare in the arb is not fading away. Sixty students auditioned.
“Our cast is really, really amazing,” she said. “Keeping the tradition alive is really, really special.”
The play wouldn’t happen without a lot of hard work by both Kalthoff and Whalen.
“I couldn’t have done it without Liz,” Kalthoff said. “I’d have gone insane.”
The cast expressed affection for their directors as well.
“Phoebe and Liz are fantastic. They are really patient directors,” said sophomore Kendell Karpack, who plays Rosalind’s cousin Celia. “If I interpret something a certain way, and they interpret something a certain way, we can kind of talk it out and decide what the character would do. So it’s really cool to have that partnership.”
Kalthoff agreed that the interpretation of the play is a collaborative effort.
“We’ve tried to keep it really, really open so it’s not us just us imposing our reading on the cast but us all having a reading together,” she said.
Freshman Dani Morey, who plays the shepherdess Phoebe in the play, said Whalen and Kalthoff are a great team.
“Watching them work together is really fun,” she said. “It’s really cute to watch Liz and Phoebe confer and talk to one another. It’s almost like they are reading each other’s minds while they confer behind their books.”
Senior Ty Herndon plays Oliver, Orlando’s older brother. He said that Whalen and Kalthoff work really hard.
“Seeing the progress from when we did a read through and everyone was just reading and now when people are taking on the roles and standing inside the text — they are really bringing it out and it’s really cool to see people’s interpretations,” he said. “It’s been a lot of fun. They keep it fun and relaxed.”
They emphasize focus on two themes in the production: love and laughter.
“There’s something I love about the gratuity and delight that Shakespeare is taking in his characters and in their language,” Whalen said. “It’s actually got some really lovely and thoughtful reflections on the nature of romantic love.”
Kalthoff and Whalen said “As You Like It” provides a character study of human nature and a realistic look at what it means to be in love. Caton has found that realism in her exploration of the character of Rosalind.
“She doesn’t take herself too seriously in love,” she said.
It’s hard to imagine how she could, considering many of her scenes contain double layers of cross-dressing.
The humor hasn’t stopped being fresh for the directors, and the actors haven’t stopped being funny.
“We have seen this so many times, and we still are just dying laughing every time,” Whalen said.
Dunn said the directors can’t keep it together at rehearsals.
“They laugh constantly at us, they just cannot get through a scene, it doesn’t matter what is happening,” he said. “Maybe this is just me, but it’s kind of distracting. They are just laughing at us all the time.”
Everyone agreed that a highlight of the productions humor is watching junior John Taylor.
“I know what the best part is going to be,” Dunn said. “It’s going to be watching John Taylor act the role he was born to play, as Touchstone, the king’s fool.”
Kalthoff and Whalen hope that audiences will be able to come out and enjoy the beauty of the arb and of Shakespeare at 2 p.m., May 2 and 3.
“I want them to take away the clever humor and comedy that Shakespeare displays. They are such crazy characters,” Kalthoff said. “I want them to have a good time and also to provoke some thought at the same time. Some of the speeches are really, really beautiful — you hear it and you can’t help but stop and think more deeply.”