Erving Goffman adeptly illustrates Shakespeareâs point that "All the worldâs a stage" in his dramaturgical treatment of it. For Goffman, social interaction involves teams of performers presenting to audiences given definitions of the situations they find themselves in. There is typically a demarcation of front and back region and team members regard each other with familiarity and share secrets and information that could prove destructive to the performance being offered.

Access to back and front regions is limited depending on oneâs role as performer, audience or outsider. In discrepant roles, these boundaries can be transgressed, occasionally for the purposes of social control, as with spotters (p. 148). Conversely, performing teams can enforce their definition of the situation upon those placed in the discrepant role of non-person by treating the individual "· as if he were not present·as a pointed way of expressing hostility."(p. 153). Because of the destructive information acquired by those in the discrepant role of service specialist, the professional ethics of their roles typically forbid them to exploit this knowledge to their advantage, i.e. through blackmail. However, a small concession delicately put is often beyond the means of this form of social control. (pp. 154-157). Training specialists (parents, teachers, etc.) teach the performer both how to build up a desirable impression while simultaneously taking the part of the future audience and illustrating by punishments the consequences of improprieties. (p. 158).

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A key problem for performing teams is to maintain control of the back regions, where they may relax and reject their front region roles, displaying attitudes that contradict their official performance. Performers, audience and outsiders all utilize techniques to maintain front and back region cohesiveness and techniques for saving the show, usually by avoiding disruptions or correcting the unavoidable, e.g. the faux pas (p. 209). In order to guarantee this happens, the performing team must select loyal, disciplined and circumspect members and tactful audiences, whose tact must be enabled by allowances on the performerâs part (p. 234). The performing team may also relax their front slightly to "provide a basis for barter" (p. 200).

As You Like It provides many examples of the social intricacies described by Goffman. In Act I, Scene III, Rosalind and Celia take on discrepant roles when, disguised as men, they go to the woods to seek Rosalindâs father. Touchstone acts as their go-between in Act II, Scene IV. Oliver shares an entrusted secret with Duke Frederick in Act III, Scene I. Act III, Scene II has Rosalind and Celia gaining access to the back regions of Orlando and Jaques, where they are privy to destructive information that undermines Orlandoâs front. In the same scene, Rosalind agrees to take the role of training specialist for Orlando. The conclusion of Act IV, Scene III, when Celia calls for Rosalind as "Ganymede, sweet Ganymede!" provides an example of out-of-character information conveyed to the knowing members of the audience (not the audience in the interaction, but the playâs audience).