As You Like It piece has been a favourite of famous actors on stage and screen, notably Vanessa Redgrave, Juliet Stevenson, Maggie Smith, Rebecca Hall, Helen Mirren, and Patti LuPone in the role of Rosalind and Alan Rickman, Stephen Spinella, Kevin Kline, Stephen Dillane, and Ellen Burstyn in the role of Jaques. Main Characters: "The Court of Duke Frederick:" "The Household of the deceased Sir Rowland de Boys:" "The Exiled Court of Duke Senior in the Forest of Arden:" "Country folk in the Forest of Arden:" "Other characters:" The play is set in a duchy in France, but most of the action takes place
As You Like It Arden, as shown below: Shakespeare uses prose for about 55% of the text, with the remainder in verse. Shaw explains that as used here the prose, "brief [and] sure", drives the meaning and is part of the play's appeal, whereas some of its verse he regards only as ornament. The dramatic convention of the time required the courtly characters to use verse, and the country characters prose, but in "As You Like It" this convention is deliberately overturned. For example, Rosalind, although the daughter of a Duke and thinking and behaving in high poetic style, actually speaks in prose as