ABSTRACT
At the start of As You Like It, we overhear what seems to be a casual conversation between a young man and a servant. But as we listen, it occurs to us that the situation unfolded in the dialogue, that of a young man oppressed by a wicked older brother, is familiar from old tales; and the fact that there are three brothers increases this feeling. At the same time we are bound to protest that Adam must already know everything Orlando is telling him. What looks at first like a realistic conversation is in fact a blatant theatrical trick: the machinery of exposition is unashamedly exposed. Yet throughout the opening scene the manner of the dialogue continues to be as natural and easy as in any of the realistic scenes of The Merchant of Venice or Much Ado About Nothing, And throughout the play this double-exposure effect persists: the characters converse in a convincingly natural manner within situations that are clearly the product of theatrical artifice. With some exceptions, it is not so easy to identify scenes as largely stylized or largely naturalistic. In place of the sharper confrontations between one idiom and another that we found in the two preceding plays, we are given a smoother, subtler blend.
