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Feb. 13th, 2024
"Very young, aren't they?" says Ailz of my Shakespeare characters.
Well, yes. You don't see it on the stage of course. Very young people don't get to play Shakespearian leads because (a) they're unlikely to have developed the skill set and (b) the politics of theatrical companies. All the same I doubt that Shakespeare thought of Rosalind, Celia and Orlando as being out of their teens. Their carryings-on- idealistic, skittish, impulsive, silly- are teenage behaviours.
Celia was the easiest to get right. One of the things I do when I'm prompting the AI is to write "ugly" as a defining characteristic of characters I want to look- well- characterful. If I don't it gives me people who are conventionally pretty- by which I mean bland. Even so this "ugly" Celia came out drop-dead gorgeous. Celia is the sensible one- until, off-stage, she falls head over heels in lust with the reformed Oliver.
I thought of having a go at Oliver. He's a total bastard and then, suddenly he's not. He'd have come out looking much like Orlando only arrogant and hateful. I don't think he's much older than his brother- and his youth is some sort of excuse for his awfulness and might be urged as partly explaining his spiritiual vote-face. He's insecure and all messed-up and malleable. His arc is interesting and insultingly underwritten. But if I did Oliver I'd need to do Dukes Senior and Junior and Audrey and Silvius and Phebe...and five was enough.
Orlando is a loveable twit. I specified "strong" because this is the guy who defeats the Duke's man-killing wrestler, but had to add "boyish" because otherwise he came out looking like a super hero. For all that, he too is drop-dead gorgeous.
Touchstone was difficult. He started out as a little fat man with sticky-up hair and ended up looking rather like the English all-round entertainer Bruce Forsythe. This Touchstone is funny and canny- with a long clown's face. Also oddly sexy. Which is fine because As You Like It is a play in which everyone is sexy.
Jacqus has "been a libertine" and is now melancholy. He needs to be sexy in a dark-avised Alan Rickmanish kind of a way. Did Rickman ever play the role? He should have done. An earler version of my Jacques was a bit too cheerful so I specified he needed to be "sad" and AI adjusted his eyes accordingly. Sometimes it acts intelligently...
Rosalind came out right at the third attempt- except that AI insisted on giving her hands with too few fingers holding a bunch of flowers that merged with the edging on her smock. Grrrr. I had endless goes at getting the hands and flowers right, but couldn't pull it off without losing her character. In the end I cropped the image to head and shoulders. I think my Rosalind is just about androgynous enough to pass herself off as a boy. Rosalind must be the most complicated and challenging female role Shakespeare ever wrote. She's a girl pretending to be a boy pretending to be a girl- with an added layer of complexity if- as on Shakespeare's stage- the role is played by a boy. Boy-girl-boy-girl. It's positively dizzying-and yet doesn't particularly seem so when you see it acted...
Well, yes. You don't see it on the stage of course. Very young people don't get to play Shakespearian leads because (a) they're unlikely to have developed the skill set and (b) the politics of theatrical companies. All the same I doubt that Shakespeare thought of Rosalind, Celia and Orlando as being out of their teens. Their carryings-on- idealistic, skittish, impulsive, silly- are teenage behaviours.
Celia was the easiest to get right. One of the things I do when I'm prompting the AI is to write "ugly" as a defining characteristic of characters I want to look- well- characterful. If I don't it gives me people who are conventionally pretty- by which I mean bland. Even so this "ugly" Celia came out drop-dead gorgeous. Celia is the sensible one- until, off-stage, she falls head over heels in lust with the reformed Oliver.
I thought of having a go at Oliver. He's a total bastard and then, suddenly he's not. He'd have come out looking much like Orlando only arrogant and hateful. I don't think he's much older than his brother- and his youth is some sort of excuse for his awfulness and might be urged as partly explaining his spiritiual vote-face. He's insecure and all messed-up and malleable. His arc is interesting and insultingly underwritten. But if I did Oliver I'd need to do Dukes Senior and Junior and Audrey and Silvius and Phebe...and five was enough.
Orlando is a loveable twit. I specified "strong" because this is the guy who defeats the Duke's man-killing wrestler, but had to add "boyish" because otherwise he came out looking like a super hero. For all that, he too is drop-dead gorgeous.
Touchstone was difficult. He started out as a little fat man with sticky-up hair and ended up looking rather like the English all-round entertainer Bruce Forsythe. This Touchstone is funny and canny- with a long clown's face. Also oddly sexy. Which is fine because As You Like It is a play in which everyone is sexy.
Jacqus has "been a libertine" and is now melancholy. He needs to be sexy in a dark-avised Alan Rickmanish kind of a way. Did Rickman ever play the role? He should have done. An earler version of my Jacques was a bit too cheerful so I specified he needed to be "sad" and AI adjusted his eyes accordingly. Sometimes it acts intelligently...
Rosalind came out right at the third attempt- except that AI insisted on giving her hands with too few fingers holding a bunch of flowers that merged with the edging on her smock. Grrrr. I had endless goes at getting the hands and flowers right, but couldn't pull it off without losing her character. In the end I cropped the image to head and shoulders. I think my Rosalind is just about androgynous enough to pass herself off as a boy. Rosalind must be the most complicated and challenging female role Shakespeare ever wrote. She's a girl pretending to be a boy pretending to be a girl- with an added layer of complexity if- as on Shakespeare's stage- the role is played by a boy. Boy-girl-boy-girl. It's positively dizzying-and yet doesn't particularly seem so when you see it acted...