Shakespeare goes '90s in 'As You Like It'

Ball State’s rendition of “As You Like It” takes readers out of the Shakespearean comedy’s original setting and into 1990s Seattle during the height of the grunge period.

The original play starts in a palace, but in Ball State's version, the court is a grunge music venue that has been commercialized. Later, some of the characters flee to a haven for new age environmentalists near the waters of the Puget Sound — Washington's version of Shakespeare's Forest of Arden.

Tracey Chessum, the director for this performance and an assistant professor of theatre, wanted to stage her production in two different places that were still part of one cultural world. The answer happened to be the ‘90s.

The premise of the production will stay the same. The characters still grapple with mistaken identity, intrigue, romance and comedy.

Chessum's innovations have presented challenges to the cast, including Maddie Deeken, a senior acting major who plays Celia in the production. 

“The biggest struggle for me is working with this whole set of different circumstances, putting characters in completely new shoes from what they were written for,” she said. 

Deeken has been involved in one other Shakespearean production at Ball State, but she said this experience has been particularly special because of the conceptual nature of this rendition.

“Once you conceptualize Shakespeare,” she said, “it opens up new ideas and a whole new world to look through.”

The production will also be altering other aspects of the conventional story — including the gender of some characters. Amiens, who is typically cast as male, is being played by Kate Yost, a senior musical theatre major.

This allows for different takes on character, which can lead to more dynamic and interesting relationships, Yost said.

As with many Shakespearean comedies, “As You Like It’s” script is ripe with lyrics. In order to do these portions justice, the band for the show has created original grunge-inspired music.

The band will be pulling from Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and many other iconic bands from the time period, Yost said.

Even though Shakespearean language is sometimes seen as a barrier to audiences, the actors said this show will be accessible to everyone.

“Shakespeare is Shakespeare,” Yost said. “Many fear Shakespeare because of his language. However, even though the language is dense, it is anything but distant to us. Shakespeare paints the emotion throughout his words, and he writes about universal themes that we deal with in modern society.... We’re talking about love and fear and competition and greed and survival.”

These universal themes are some of the driving forces behind the production. As the characters leave the structured world of the palace for the rest of society, the show delves into the humanistic search for finding one’s place in the world.

“We’re dealing with a lot of modern relevant issues especially related to people’s self-concepts,” said Maureen O’Leary, the show’s assistant director and a junior directing major.“Who are you and what is your place in your chosen world?”

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