This year the Classic Stage Company is celebrating its 50th Anniversary. As You Like It is the first of two Shakespearean productions this season. Terrible is the word that came to my mind walking out of the theater.
The company’s Artistic Director is John Doyle who gave us brilliant revivals of Sweeney Todd and The Color Purple over the last decade. He directed and designed this production, with original music by Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin, Godspell). Apparently one-third of the original text has been trimmed here. I know Mr. Doyle tends to have a minimalist approach to his stagings. What is left here, however, gives the impression of an under-rehearsed sketch with piano, violin and singing to further throw off any clarity on the play’s story arc. The acting is all over the place and lacking in chemistry between the performers. That is problematic for a play that ends in a quadruple wedding.
Much of the action takes place in the Forest of Arden, rendered here minimally with lights designed as acorns hanging from the ceiling. There was nothing remotely magical or mysterious about the setting. The space was too brightly lit reinforcing the rehearsal hall quality. The costumes were odd and did not place the characters into any definable period. The rainbow umbrella to comment on the gender bending role reversal was symbolic overkill.
I did enjoy some moments from certain performers, particularly Quincy Tyler Bernstine (Celia), Hannah Cabell (Rosalind) and Kyle Scatliffe (Orlando). Elllen Burstyn (Oscar winner for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, The Exorcist) played Jacques, the melancholy philosopher in the forest. She delivers the “all the world’s a stage” speech. Unfortunately, all I heard were words. Perhaps if I knew this piece before seeing this production I would have been less bored and a tad less confused. I would, however, probably still land on “terrible” as my summation of this As You Like It.
One Reply to “As You Like It (Classic Stage Company)”