As You Like It

As You Like It - a play by William Shakespeare

Here is another illustration based off of a Shakespeare play and made specifically for SubPlot Studio. This time I went with the comedy As You Like It. It seems I really needed to lighten the mood after delving into deep, dark Titus. 

Mix laughs, love, cross-dressing and mistaken identity together and you have the basics of the play. Plus, As You Like It has the wonderful female lead, Rosalind. Focusing on her wit and awesomeness really made up for the sadness I felt over the empty symbolic shell of Lavnia in Titus Andronicus. Also keep in mind this is a Shakespeare play... and it would be a incomplete without a healthy dose of banishment. So Rosalind, of course, gets banished. (baniSHED!) She then disguises herself as a lovely shepherd boy, names her new identity Ganymede, and wreaks sexy-havoc in the Forest of Arden. From that point on every man, women, and tree falls in love with her. him. them. er. well. anyway. Everyone falls in love with Ganymedalind. I mean Ganymede. what?

My experience with As You Like It has been a short and recent one. I saw it performed by the Kentwood Players at the Westchester Playhouse in LA. It was directed by my friend, the multi-talented artist and karaoke machine, Jeremy Speed Schwartz. He asked me to read a couple lines with some folks of superior talent. We were then recorded and our bits were edited together to make us look like botox-riddled, caffeine-drunk talk show hosts (à la Talk Soup.) Perhaps not the most traditional introduction to As You Like It?

Here's a photo that helped inspired me:

 A Cary Grant-Katherine Hepburn-James Stewart sandwich? Don't mind if I do!