Geraldine James is to play Rosalind this summer in a “playful and provocative” production of As You Like It by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
James, 72, will make her RSC debut in the role of the young woman exiled in the Forest of Arden. She is to join other veteran actors in Omar Elerian’s production of the play at the Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, from 17 June. The stage will be transformed into a rehearsal room where the actors gather to remember a past show and share out the roles between them.
As You Like It is promoted as an ode “to young love, old age and theatre itself”. It is the latest example of age-blind casting in Shakespeare, after Ian McKellen played Hamlet aged 82 in Windsor in 2021 and again the following year in a dance production at the Edinburgh fringe. Playing Hamlet in his 80s – when the character is generally assumed to be 30 at most – was a way to explore “how much we need to see what we’re hearing” in a play, McKellen said before the Windsor production opened.
In 2016, Derek Jacobi was cast as Romeo’s hot-headed friend Mercutio in a West End production of Romeo and Juliet staged by Kenneth Branagh and Rob Ashford. Jacobi was 77 when he played the part while Richard Madden, as Romeo, was 29. (Jacobi now thinks it could be the final stage role of his career.) At the Old Vic in London in 2013, Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones, aged 76 and 82 respectively, took on the roles of Beatrice and Benedick in Mark Rylance’s production of Much Ado About Nothing which was widely considered ill-conceived.
James was nominated for a Tony award on Broadway for The Merchant of Venice in 1990 and played Gertrude opposite Jude Law’s Hamlet in New York in 2009. She has had a celebrated career on screen including roles in the classic TV series The Jewel in the Crown and Band of Gold and, in 2021, The Beast Must Die. She played Queen Mary in the 2019 Downton Abbey film.
Elerian said of As You Like It: “I am really excited about starting rehearsals on this intriguing project, which will explore our relation to love, freedom, and the passing of time. I adore working with actors, so to be able to draw on the talent, craft and experience of exquisite performers such as Geraldine James is a true privilege.”
