A play on the page, and two ways to stage it

Grade 11 Reading Worksheet

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Use this

   As You Like It, Act 3, Scene 2 (Shakespeare's comedy, script copied exactly with … marking each cut, and two invented productions): Scene note:
   [1] Rosalind, a duke's daughter, has escaped to the Forest of Arden disguised as a young man, and Orlando, who loves her and has been decorating the trees with love poems, encounters this youth without recognizing Rosalind.
   [2] Her cousin Celia, who knows the secret, is standing beside her, and Rosalind speaks first to Celia and then calls out to Orlando.

   From the script:
   [3] ROSALIND: I will speak to him like a saucy lackey, and under that habit play the knave with him.
   [4] ROSALIND (to Orlando): Do you hear, forester? … I pray you, what is’t o’clock?
   [5] ORLANDO: You should ask me what time o’ day. There’s no clock in the forest.
   [6] ROSALIND: Then there is no true lover in the forest, else sighing every minute and groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot of time as well as a clock.
   [7] ORLANDO: And why not the swift foot of time? Had not that been as proper?
   [8] ROSALIND: By no means, sir. Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. …
   [9] ORLANDO: … Where dwell you, pretty youth?

   Production A (invented):
   [10] At the Birchwood Festival, Rosalind wears a cap that continually slips to reveal long hair, races through the conversation with obvious delight, and winks at the audience on the words true lover.
   [11] Orlando never notices the slipping cap, so the audience enjoys a joke that he cannot see.

   Production B (invented):
   [12] The Fenmore Studio gives Rosalind a short haircut, a lowered voice and a completely convincing disguise, and she speaks deliberately, pausing after no true lover in the forest as though measuring Orlando's reaction.
   [13] This Orlando bristles at the insult, steps closer, and then softens noticeably when he asks where the pretty youth lives.

   Word notes:
   [14] A lackey is a servant, a habit is a costume, to play the knave is to play tricks, divers means various, and a pace is a speed of walking.

2. 1.

   Ari fills the production rows. What reading of Rosalind do Production A's slipping cap and wink suggest?

   • Rosalind means to act as a dishonest servant and cheat Orlando of money.
   • Rosalind secretly wants to be discovered, so she lets the cap fall on purpose.
   • Rosalind is enjoying the game of disguise and sharing the joke with the audience.
   • Rosalind is carefully testing whether Orlando's love can survive an insult.
3. 2.

   Luz fills the script column. How does Rosalind's aside to Celia in part 3 move the scene forward?

   • It tells the audience that Rosalind has fled to Arden dressed as a young man.
   • It reveals that there is no clock in the forest, so the time must be guessed.
   • It shows Rosalind speaking quietly to Celia before calling out to Orlando.
   • It sets up the teasing game in disguise that the rest of the scene plays out.
4. 3.

   Jun fills the production rows. What reading of Orlando does Production B give?

   • An Orlando who takes the insult seriously but is drawn to the youth in spite of it.
   • An Orlando whose anger follows a stage direction printed after part 6.
   • An Orlando so taken up with his own answers that he fails to notice the slipping cap.
   • An Orlando who has already guessed the disguise and is quietly playing along.
5. 4.

   Pia fills the script column. How does Orlando's question in part 9 keep the plot going?

   • Pretty youth shows the disguise is working, so the deception can go on.
   • Orlando asks where the youth lives, once their talk about time is over.
   • Orlando softens toward the youth, which begins a friendship between them.
   • Orlando says there is no clock in the forest, which closes the talk about time.
6. 5.

   Bo compares the productions. What does Production A gain by letting Orlando miss the slipping cap?

   • The audience worries that Rosalind will be found out, which fills the scene with suspense.
   • The audience watches the insult land and waits tensely for Orlando's reply.
   • The audience knows more than Orlando does, which makes the disguise a comedy.
   • The audience decides Orlando is foolish and stops believing in his love.

7. Use this

   The Contrast, Act 3, Scene 1 (Royall Tyler's American comedy of 1787, script copied exactly with … marking each cut, and two invented productions): Scene note:
   [1] Jonathan, a plain-spoken young farmhand from Massachusetts, has come to New York as the servant of Colonel Manly, and Jenny, a maid in the house where they lodge, has heard where he went the night before.
   [2] In 1787 many Americans distrusted the theater, and several states had laws against stage plays, so Jonathan has been taught to avoid playhouses entirely.

   From the script:
   [3] JENNY: So, Mr. Jonathan, I hear you were at the play last night. … Well, and how did you find the place?
   [4] JONATHAN: As I was going about here and there, to and again, to find it, I saw a great crowd of folks going into a long entry that had lantherns over the door; …
   [5] JONATHAN: … And so I saw a bower of topping folks, all sitting round in little cabbins, “just like father’s corn-cribs”; and then there was such a squeaking with the fiddles, and such a tarnal blaze with the lights, my head was near turned. …
   [6] JONATHAN: … they lifted up a great green cloth and let us look right into the next neighbor’s house. …
   [7] JENNY: … Well, Mr. Jonathan, you were certainly at the play-house.
   [8] JONATHAN: I at the play-house!—Why didn’t I see the play then?
   [9] JENNY: Why, the people you saw were players.

   Production A (invented):
   [10] The Old Mill Stage lets Jonathan act out everything he describes, squinting at imaginary lights, sawing an imaginary fiddle and hauling an imaginary curtain, so that his account becomes an energetic little performance of its own.
   [11] On the final line, Jenny sweeps her arm toward the actual audience.

   Production B (invented):
   [12] The Commons Theater keeps Jonathan seated and completely earnest, puzzled rather than foolish, and he never once plays for laughs.
   [13] When he mentions the little cabbins, he glances up at the theater's own boxes, and the audience laughs because they are sitting in exactly the kind of building he cannot recognize.

   Word notes:
   [14] Lantherns are lanterns, topping folks are fashionable people, cabbins are the enclosed box seats of a theater, corn-cribs are farm bins for storing corn, and tarnal is a New England word meaning tremendous.

8. 6.

   Milo fills the production rows. What reading of Jonathan does Production B's seated, earnest Jonathan give?

   • A clever youth who knew from the start that he was watching a play.
   • A lively storyteller who turns a night out into a show of his own.
   • An honest country youth who is truly puzzled, not a fool to be laughed at.
   • A youth who disliked the topping folks because they were rude to him.
9. 7.

   Zee fills the script column. How do Jenny's questions in part 3 drive the scene?

   • Jenny tells Jonathan that the people he saw were players, which clears up his confusion.
   • They draw out Jonathan's story, so the audience enjoys what he fails to see.
   • Jenny says she heard about the play and asks Jonathan how he found the place.
   • Jenny reminds Jonathan that several states had laws against stage plays.
10. 8.

    Kira compares the productions. What effect does Production A's acting out of fiddles, lights and curtain have?

    • It shows that Jonathan secretly loved the play and now wants to become an actor.
    • It slows the story down, so the audience loses track of where Jonathan went.
    • It turns Jonathan's account into a little show, so the audience laughs at his energy.
    • It makes the audience laugh at themselves, seated in the very boxes Jonathan describes.
11. 9.

    Ren fills the production rows. What does Production A's Jenny suggest by sweeping her arm toward the audience?

    • That the audience, too, are watching players, just as Jonathan unknowingly did.
    • That Jonathan should look up at the theater's boxes to see where he sat.
    • That Jenny is following Tyler's own direction in part 9 to point at the audience.
    • That Jenny is scolding the audience for attending plays the law forbids.
12. 10.

    Noah compares the productions. What does Production B's glance at the theater's boxes do for the audience?

    • It makes them laugh at Jonathan for being too poor to buy a box seat.
    • It makes them laugh at Jonathan's lively acting of the fiddles and the curtain.
    • It makes them laugh: they sit in just the kind of building he cannot recognize.
    • It hushes them, since they feel sorry for a stranger lost in the city.