play as

play as

1. To perform a role as a fictional character in a particular kind of way. A noun or pronoun is used between "play" and "as." He chose to play Macbeth as sniveling and wormy to underscore just how pathetic and vindictive his motivations were. For some reason she decided to play the character completely straight, even though she's obviously meant to be an exaggerated, hyperbolic parody.
2. To handle, interpret, or regard something in a particular kind of way. A noun or pronoun is used between "play" and "as." I'm willing to play this whole thing as a big misunderstanding. It's your first week on the job, so I'm sure the boss will play it as a simple mistake and move on.
See also: play
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

play something as something

to deal with something as if it were something else. I will play this matter as a simple case of mistaken identity. We will play this lapse as an instance of forgetfulness and not make too much of it.
See also: play
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • play by ear
  • play it by ear
  • play something by ear
  • walk on stage and off again
  • close of play
  • play off
  • double play
  • fair play to someone
  • state of play
  • the state of play
References in classic literature
"Well, absurd though it be, I place great hopes on your playing of roulette," she remarked musingly; "wherefore, you ought to play as my partner and on equal shares; wherefore, of course, you will do as I wish."
"Really, I pretend to no reasoning upon the subject at all," said Charlotte, smiling; "but if you have such an intention, indulge in it freely, I beg of you, for you will not find a rival in me.--But, listen, he is about to play a solo on his flute."
A man with three hundred thousand dollars may play a solo, but he never can be alone where there are any to listen.
Pretend play as improvisation: Conversation in the preschool classroom.
Play as the zone of proximal development: Collaborative con structive block play.
Every year she travels to Florida with a group of fellow golfers and they play as many courses as possible between Ocala and Clearwater, all the way through Orlando.
It is believed that, when play therapists allow the child to control the play sessions, the child will express his/her stories and experiences and use play as the narrative to address his/her concerns (Baggerly, 2003).
Wilson does acknowledge the important role the audience plays in the final product, and he also realizes that the composition of the audience affects the play as well.
This thinking can be illustrated by tracking the evolution of an extremely successful play as it was modified to meet the demands of change.
Local plays were generally mediocre and suffered from structural defects and inadequate characterization, with many of them written essentially for reading by writers who viewed the play as a literary text rather than as a dramatic one to be performed on stage.
Teachers often find themselves defending or even questioning their choice of play as a teaching strategy when parents express concern.
Smith's brief definition echoes elements of Huizinga's and Caillois, - i.e., he considers play as a pleasurable, intrinsically motivated, voluntary, and repetitive or patterned activity that is separate in time from other activities and is governed by either implicit or explicit rules, (p.
in Patterson 49).(5) In its interrogative designs and subversive disturbances, the poem seems to lend itself naturally to phenomenological and deconstructive analyses, neither inappropriate perhaps for a play as concerned as Hamlet is with the reflexions of textuality and the dysfunctions of meaning.
At the University of Rochester in New York, graduate student Brian Marsh and his colleagues are even using checker play as part of a project designed to investigate ways of integrating computer programs written in different languages.
He gives her much advice about the play-in-progress--arguing effectively, judging by Suzanne's play as rendered by Kennedy, that she must consult more diaries and cautioning her that "many of [the] scenes are too romantic" (10-11).