As You Like It: Re-imagining Arden in Australian Space

Abstract

The Forest of Arden as evoked in Shakespeare's As You Like It exhibits a demonstrably ambivalent attitude towards 'nature'. However, the play's stage-production history, well into the twentieth century, reflects an unproblematic and deeply nostalgic identification of Arden with the English pastoral setting. That this has been the case even in Australia is the paradox explored by and challenged in the present article. By first establishing the play's fundamental ambivalence on the subject of the human relationship with nature, it goes on to examine the ways contemporary Australian discourses of settlement and unsettlement have inflected the meanings made possible through the play in recent times. This is effected through a critical survey of Australian stage productions from the late twentieth century, concluding with two detailed case studies from its close: Simon Phillips' production for the Sydney Theatre Company (1996), and Neil Armfield's for Company B, Belvoir Street (1999).