Spent a good part of the day excising lines from As You Like It, preparing an acting script for a production of Shakespeare's comedy we're planning for July. To be honest, I've had the job of finalising the carved-up version of the script for quite some time, it being on my to-do list since last November, but it's an odd sort of job requiring lots of preparatory thought and extended private time in a space where you can run lines over and over (to yourself) to test that the cuts aren't doing any active damage and are genuinely helping shape the show the way it's intended to go.
And what is the 'vision' behind this version? Pure entertainment, I'm afraid: a good time guaranteed for all kind of thing. With a bit of magic here and there, we hope. Not too much of a stretch I reckon with WS often at his daftest and having a good time deconstructing the Pastoral Romance every which way.
The interesting thing about carving Shakespeare up is how easily the drama survives the operation and how much you get to learn in the process about the nuts and bolts of how it works.
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