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Alan Rickman
on
Jaques
As You Like It (1600)
Royal Shakespeare Company Opened at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon on 23 April 1985
Directed by Adrian Noble
Designed by Bob Crowley With Nicky Henson as Touchstone, Hilton McRae as Orlando, Fiona Shaw as Celia, and Juliet Stevenson as Rosalind
As You Like It was written at the turn of the sixteenth century, shortly before Twelfth Night and the great tragedies that followed. It divides critics. ‘A work of great literary value,’ say some. Others condemn it as ‘lacking artistry, a mere crowd-pleaser’. In any case it remains extremely popular. On the surface, the play is a simple pastoral romantic comedy, with little of the darkness of Shakespeare’s other mature comedies, and its happy ending is never in doubt. At a deeper level, however, it touches on a host of complex subjects, such as love, nature, ageing and death. The comedy’s genius lies not in its paper-thin plot but in its characters. Rosalind’s generosity of spirit, complexity of emotion and subtlety of thought make her one of Shakespeare’s most fully realised and beguiling characters.
Much of the plot of As You Like It was influenced by Thomas Lodge’s novel Rosalynde. Jaques, however, is a new character, invented by Shakespeare. The part is relatively small, only the fifth largest, which is surprising considering its impact. He is umbilically linked to the word ‘melancholy’. Jaques seems proud of his abilty to ‘suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs’ [2.5]. His sardonic commentary, along with Touchstone’s restless bawdy innuendo, provide a valuable counterpoint to Rosalind’s front-foot energy. And yet the two overlap in their suspicion of romantic folly. When Rosalind mocks Orlando’s verses as a ‘tedious homily of love’ [3.2], or asserts that ‘men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love’ [4.1], one can imagine Jaques nodding in agreement – if he were present.
Running in tandem with this is the Jaques who would be a licensed jester. After his first meeting with the clown Touchstone he says [2.7]:
I did laugh sans intermission
An hour by his dial… O that I were a fool!
I am ambitious for a motley coat…
Give me leave
To speak my mind, and I will through and through
Cleanse the foul body of the infected world,
If they will patiently receive my medicine.
However, Jaques rarely takes part in the action around him, preferring to observe and comment, rather than participate. He is best known for a speech to be found in every Shakespearean anthology, in which he compares human life to a play in seven acts [2.7]:
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages…
I met Alan Rickman and recorded the following interview at his house in Southern Tuscany in September 2012. I worked with him just once, when he played Rasputin in the film of that name. His death in January 2016 at the age of sixty-nine came as a huge shock. He was highly respected, a wonderful actor and a very generous supporter of others. Juliet Stevenson, who played opposite him in the film Truly, Madly, Deeply, wrote that ‘Many hundreds of people in this profession owe their careers to Alan Rickman.’
Julian Curry: As You Like It is often described as Shakespeare’s most light-hearted comedy. Does that sound right to you?
Alan Rickman: I recently saw a performance in the Park in New York, and I was reminded how much I love it. However, the production was very feel-good, and whilst it’s joyous ultimately, the play covers a wide spectrum of moods. I thought it was a bit too much of a crowd-pleaser. Crowd-pleasing is great, and you can take the audience somewhere wonderful, but in my opinion they should go on a bit more of a journey in order to get there.
Yes. Adrian Noble, who directed the production you were in, was quoted as calling it a play with a ‘curiously dark centre’. Can you elaborate on that?
Well, the flight to the forest was quite grim – he made it a kind of revolutionary act. It wasn’t just a bunch of people wanting to trip about lightly, looking at the trees and sitting in dappled sunlight. He really examined what that was like, because they were living a pretty miserable existence. It was winter and they were cold, and wondering what on earth they’d done… as who wouldn’t.
I was struck by that. I remember the girls and Touchstone entering, wrapped-up and shivering.
There are all sorts of little clues. The point is it’s about people trying to figure out who they are. Of course, being in the mid-eighties, and having Juliet Stevenson and Fiona Shaw playing Rosalind and Celia, it was a very feminist production. So it examined acutely the role of women, it was clearly awake to those issues. Usually with Rosalind you get a sense of the actor taking a moment in time, and it’s about how high she can fly and how wide she can spread her wings. But it’s important to look at the text – funnily enough – and there was a line that struck me loud and clear in the Park in the summer, when Celia’s dad Duke Frederick says to her, about Rosalind, ‘She is too subtle for thee.’ Whenever I’ve talked to actors who are about to play her, I’ve always found mysel...
