For an actor, there’s nothing like the feeling after the last round of callbacks is finally over, when at last you glimpse your name on the posted cast list. Giddiness, relief and maybe even a smidgen of triumph wash over you as you practically burst with the satisfying sense that all your preparation and expended nerves were worthwhile after all.
But this was not to be the fate of ten performers who saw their names listed on the call board the night of Sunday, Sept. 1, when casting for the Theater Department’s Fall 2013 Main Stage Season was posted. When Ben Ballard ’16, Brittany Baltay ’16, Julian Gordon ’14, Julia Larsen ’14, Caroline Lazar ’15, Scott Pulvirent ’14, Leila Teitelman ’15, Emily Ultan ’17, Noam Waksman ’15 and Emma Weisberg ’16 signed that sheet of paper to indicate they’d accepted their respective roles in As You Like It… Well, there weren’t actually any roles for them to accept.
For this particular incarnation of William Shakespeare’s beloved romantic comedy, director (and Associate Professor of Theater/Theater Department Chair) David Jaffe wanted to “create an ensemble.” All well and good, but how exactly does an acting ensemble come together? And what on earth do you do during rehearsal if no one has any idea who they’ll be playing when the curtain rises on opening night?
“Basically, it’s been like a class thus far, where we’ve been looking at the script with the eyes of someone studying it for an academic purpose. Very much like an English class. We are not cast yet, and that is kind of key to this process. It keeps us from being tunnel-visioned into thinking about our roles. So we think about the show — the whole show — before we have time to worry about our own roles,” said Gordon.
Another member of the ensemble, Larsen, said that “What we’ve been doing so far is looking through and making cuts, because there are only ten of us, so we knew from the beginning we were going to have to make a lot of cuts. So that’s another reason we haven’t been cast yet: we’re able to think of the play as a whole. That way, when we make our cuts, we aren’t like, ‘Oh, but I don’t want to cut any of these lines ’cause they’re mine!’ We’re thinking more about what would benefit the play as one chunk.”
What’s that? This creative team has the nerve to actually delete some of Shakespeare’s written genius? Nothing quite so drastic, Larsen said. “We’ve cut a few characters out — you know, extra pages and lords and people who only come in to just say one thing and then leave. A lot of the cuts that we’ve made have been internal cuts: just cutting from really long monologues or cutting things that are repetitive. There are a couple of scenes where Jaques [a melancholy nobleman to whom the Bard gave his legendary ‘All the world’s a stage’ speech] has like three long monologues. None of them really fuel the plot per se, but some of them are really helpful for Jaques as a character, so it’s just kind of going through and finding what we can cut and what is helping that actor find that character.”
Several days after The College Voice dropped in on one of these class/rehearsal periods for As You Like It, Professor Jaffe announced his casting decisions via e-mail. The hard work put in by this team of actors and director since early September evidently paid off, if the streamlined yet innovative distribution of roles serves as any indication. “Traditional” casting prevailed for some of the principal parts: Lazar will portray the indefatigable heroine Rosalind, Ballard will be seen as her wrestler love interest Orlando, Teitelman as Rosalind’s vivacious cousin Celia and Waksman as the gloomy philosopher Jaques.
Other commonsensical choices include Baltay as the proud shepherdess called Phoebe (Pulvirent will take on the role of her would-be suitor, Silvius), comedienne Weisberg as unapologetic bumpkin Audrey and Gordon as the villainous Oliver. With a couple of major roles, however, Professor Jaffe has wholly embraced the play’s enthusiastic employment of cross-dressing and mistaken identity: Ultan will play Duke (Duchess?) Senior and Larsen will be seen as the (usually male) clown Touchstone. Add to this the fact that, due to the compact size of the cast, doubling of some minor roles will have to occur regardless of these characters’ gender, and this is sure to be As You Like It — well, “as” you have never seen (or, um, “liked?”) it before.•
Opening night of As You Like It will be Thursday, November 21 at 7:30 p.m. Performances run through Sunday, November 24 in Tansill Theater.
