ABSTRACT
A play acted is a thing of flesh, whether (as in this case it does) its setting inclines it to be or not. I remember once proposing to cast as Rosalind in a student production of As You Like It the prettiest boy we could find. Since girls usually play girls’ parts in the modem theatre, one could hardly make such a casting decision without more conscious sexual intent than that merely implicit because usual, indeed necessary, in Shakespeare’s own theatrical circumstances. The argument prevailed that to cast a boy as Rosalind, even though the play itself made Rosalind cast herself as a boy pretending to be a girl, was too much outside interference in relations between audience and players. But there was also relief at this decision, made thus for ‘literary’ reasons, because we had to go on tour with the play, and how unpredictably, awkwardly, complexly, might a boy Rosalind reach into the company which was also audience for its own production as it went from place to place?
