Globe Education Online

Celia and Rosalind talk about ideas, trying to understand what life is about. They have conversations about fortune versus nature and enjoy contradicting each other and arguing their point – their conversations are reminiscent of those of adolescents – as yet neither Celia nor Rosalind have experiences to inform their discussions. In the forest this begins to change, the friends enter a different world with different people and begin to experience things they had only previously talked of.

Tonia now feels she needs to explore Celia’s role in the forest. Ganymede and Orlando become close quite quickly and Celia as the only female is left out – she can no longer play their games. Tonia feels that Celia might ‘keep house’ in the forest, yet she recognised that Celia is only playing at this – she is not doing any really hard work and remains essentially a princess in Arden. Tonia has asked for lots of miniature games for one that can hang from her dress and which she can play with during Ganymede and Orlando’s long discussions.

Celia is the character who discovers Orlando – she finds his poems on the branches, Tonia feels that Celia spends a lot of time exploring the forest, wandering around in her own private world, therefore she probably knows the forest very well and has a strong imaginary life.

At one point Celia feels that Ganymede and Orlando have gone too far, she disapproves of their games and becomes increasingly isolated from their activities.

At this point in the rehearsal process the company went on a residential weekend to an Elizabethan manor house where they improvised the scenes that were not in the play. This was useful for Tonia as it allowed her to explore how Celia would spend her time in the forest. Tonia realised how much Celia was alone and how she was surrounded by other couples – Ganymede/Rosalind and Orlando, Phebe and Silvius, Touchstone and Audrey. This experience contributed to Tonia’s sense of Celia’s growing isolation in the forest.

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.

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