The first workshop is at ManhattanTheaterSource, 177 MacDougal Street, at 3pm Sunday 16th. It is being directed by Jenny Greeman, who was Asssisatnt Director on our previous allegorical production of A Midsummer Night's Dream; A Comic Jewish satire (2007).

We should ask ourselves why does scene one of AYLI open in an orchard? Why the references to a horse, to manage, to an ox? Why the mention of a dunghill? Why do Celia and Rosalind have a maidservant called Hisperia? Why, for that matter, does Duke Senior-the first person thrown out-introduce himself by complaining about bitterly cold winds? When Rosalind and Celia leave, why do they complain about briers? Why is the forest surrounded by a circle, why is everyone so hungry, why are the deer compared to “greasy citizens” and “burghers” who make their wills like men? Why is Duke Senior referred to as a “Roman conqueror”? Why does Rosalind describe Celia by referring to Julius Caesar's maxim “I came, I saw, I conquered”? By solving these straightforward clues it is possible to work out the meaning of the play.

The main clues of course are the references to the Roman-Jewish war. The reason why the forest is surrounded by a circle, why everyone is starving, and why several people are hung on trees, is that this is all an allegory for the Roman-Jewish war and the real events that are described in Josephus' History of the Jewish War. The deer are dying like “citizens” because they represent the citizens of Jerusalem. The reason the man in charge of this “hunting” (which was a standard Elizabethan allegory for a battle) is referred to as a Roman conqueror is that is precisely who he is- an allegory for Vespasian Caesar.