A Silly Sashay on Spelling: Andrew Blogs on As You Like It

By Andrew Beck (charts courtesy of SCIENCE!)

Jaques the melancholy man becomes Jaques the married man.

It’s important you know that I am married. Yes, to a real person. Thus, I am at liberty to speak on this subject, as I have first-hand knowledge.

Jaques is not married, nor does he begin with any plans to EVER be married. In this way, my Jaques is similar to Arianne Jacques. Let us overlook how Arianne mispronounces and misspells her last name for the moment. However, I will tell you that this last name butchery is talked of only in embarrassed, hushed tones on the world renowned “Jaques-of-all-tirades” Reddit page. This is a blog about As You Like It and thus this Ja(c)ques spelling/pronunciation schism is a story for another time and place.

Wait.

Actually…NO!

We are doing this now!

Roll up your sleeves, kiddos!

We are about to have a full-blown Jacques off!

To which:

I can’t stand another rehearsal trying to act like I’m “falling in love” with (C)elia, (played wonderfully by Miss Ja(c)ques) whilst the C in Arianne’s last name slaps me in the face and practically declares me a Feckless, Cream-Faced Loon every time I fail to voice my displeasure with the unseemliness of her familial, heritable, and yet still regrettable, spelling choices.

How can I pretend to be in love when all I see when I see (C)elia is a sea of C’s smirking back at me?

Well fortunately our Director (erstwhile Resident-Acting-Company member and nowstwhile Associate-Artistic-Director Cassie Greer, MFA, formerly of Indiana, now Oregonian by way of Florida [Sorry, she has requested that she always be listed like that]) has provided us with a text. This text is brand new mind you and was created specifically for our production. Our director has informed me I must follow it …SPECIFICALLY! Regardless of whether Arianne’s ceases to see her way away from seeking asylum at the Embass-C of a certain C.

In this text, we tell a story of a man on an island, full of judgement of the world and that by meeting this (C)elia he finds himself forever changed. Suddenly, Jaques experiences the world in a new and different way. Something about (C)elia changes his brain, almost instantly, and forces him to be open to new ideas because he simply cannot go on living as he had before. For his former way of living is no longer enough for him. The past is shocked out of him by (C)elia and he can only move forward. Things he never would have thought possible are now, not only probable, but seem inevitable and will be made to happen.

So, in this spirit of change I will turn my sights back to Miss Arianne Ja(c)ques.

Please, do what’s right.

Be a good scene partner.
Please see yourself free of that abominable “C”

If we can make it past this hurdle, Arianne, perhaps Jaques and (C)elia can end up happily ever after.

Ball is in your court, Ja(c)ques.

Please see attached graph.

(It’s quite clear what the preferred name is. You can’t argue with a chart…it even says it’s sponsored by Science. Indisputable.)