I’ve read As you Like It before, but this time I was had to force myself to pick up the play, and it took me weeks to get through. The characters seem so insipid, and the plot’s not my favorite. (Why does Touchstone get Audrey, tearing her away from some poor sap who loves her, when Silvius gets stuck with Phebe, whom he loves but who completely ignores him to run after Rosalind? And what is up with Orlando agreeing to pretend-woo this random shepherd boy, who is Rosalind pretending to be Ganymede pretending to be Rosalind?) If it weren’t for the melancholy Jacque, and occasionally Celia making fun of Rosalind, the love-struck stupidity would be too much.
But I do love Adam. He’s Alfred to Orlando’s Bruce Wayne. He’s grandfatherly, he’s dear, and he’s so loyal. He’s too old to be of much help around the estate anymore, but he insists on giving Orlando his life’s savings (which he needs to live on, mind you) when Orlando is banished. And he pleads to go along. He knows he won’t be any help, but he swears not to be a hindrance, and together they march off into the sunset.
Awhile later, after a troublesome journey, Adam is practically perishing from hunger and fatigue. Orlando manages to secure some food for them when he meets the Duke’s forest court, and Adam is saved. But that’s the last we hear of him! I want more Adam! At the very least, I want him to have a line at the wedding to verify that he’s still alive.
