As You Like it (1599) still chimes loud in our present, underscoring that even if life is full of adversity, seen in Duke Senior’s exile to the forest and his daughter Rosalind’s mistreatment, people continue to find love (four couples get married) and support each other (Adam and Orlando, Celia and Rosalind). People, moreover, can sometimes change when in contact with nature; in the forest Oliver, who was selfish and materialistic, falls in love with Celia, while believing her to be penniless. He also makes peace with his younger brother, Orlando. Duke Frederick, who sent his brother, Duke Senior, into exile, reinstates him to his dukedom and undergoes a religious conversion, deciding to stay in the forest. While not idealizing ‘a return to nature’, Shakespeare shows how life in the forest gives Ganymede (Rosalind disguised as a man) and Orlando a chance to really get to know each other, free from the strict rules of Renaissance society.

In our production, we’ll be asking: what can a life close to nature mean for people who have always lived there? And what about the so-called incomers, who have left the city behind them for a country retreat? These questions stand central to the play and are something that many of us who live in overpopulated, polluted, pandemic-ridden cities are toying with today.