Word: rosalinds
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...major acting burden falls on the heroine Rosalind, which is the longest female role in all Shakespeare (there are ten or so longer male parts, topped by Hamlet, Richard III, Iago and Henry V). Rosalind is longer even than Cleopatra, which is the most difficult of the women's roles. Bernard Shaw attributed the great popularity of Rosalind to three factors: she speaks blank verse only for a few minutes; she wears a skirt only a few minutes; and she makes love to the man instead of waiting for him to make love to her. The last idea...
Women become actresses in part so that they may become someone else for a while. They jump at the chance to play Rosalind since it allows them to extend the make-believe to the point of portraying a young man who mocks the moods of a woman in love. Originally this artificiality was carried one remove further because all female roles were played by boy-actors. (England once more saw an all-male As You Like It in 1920, and, more recently, at the National Theatre...
...current Rosalind is the much-honored Eileen Atkins, making her AST debut. Mis Atkins is no stranger to the part, having played it (in bluejeans) back home with the Royal Shakespeare Company three years ago. She is still young enough for the role, though she is not so pretty as one would like. Her angular face is no insuperable drawback, however, since she spends most of the play disguised as a curly-headed Ganymede in a riding outfit...
...trippingly on the tongue. She is at her best in a passage like the one where she describes to Orlando the earmarks of a man in love. But at times an unwelcome hard edge creeps into her voice. In addition, I miss the extraordinary radiance and ebullience an ideal Rosalind should convey--a task that would be easier amid less bleak surroundings...
Tovah Feldshuh is amusing as Rosalind's inseparable cousin Celia--vivacious and at times even giddy. On her first entrance she looks just lovely in her white and gold costume. Later she appears with properly besmirched cheeks, toting a caged bird through the forest...