As You Like It opens the Stratford Festival with a post-apocalyptic boom

Globe and Mail

6 days ago

Title: As You Like It
Written by: William Shakespeare
Performed by: Sara Farb, Makambe K. Simamba, Sean Arbuckle, Christopher Allen, Andrew Chown, Steve Ross, Seana McKenna, Jessica B. Hill, Silvae Mercedes
Director: Chris Abraham
Company: Stratford Festival
Venue: Festival Theatre
City: Stratford
Year: Until Oct. 24, 2025
Critic's Pick
In The Last of Us, society is synonymous with death. A parasitic fungus called cordyceps travels easily between humans, and in the not-too-distant future, companionship is a surefire way of getting killed, or worse, turning into a zombie. It's safer, the video-game-turned-television-smash posits, to run for the forests – to live on the fringes of civilization.
Of course, idealizing the countryside in media isn't new. We've longed for greener pastures for millennia. In literature, stories that turn their backs on city life are referred to as pastorals, and William Shakespeare wrote a bunch of 'em – most chiefly As You Like It, which on Monday night opened this year's Stratford Festival with a genre-bending, post-apocalyptic boom set to a backdrop of lilting guitars.
It's a fabulous production that clearly takes its inspiration from a certain TV show starring Pedro Pascal, as well as the ever-real threats of the climate crisis. But director Chris Abraham doesn't shoehorn Shakespeare's story into any old context du jour – he makes a winning case for the contemporary framing, and when the play embarks on its much more upbeat second half, there's an almost-physical shift from the pain and gloom of what preceded it. A retreat.
Long one of my favourites of Shakespeare's plays, As You Like It is a banger if done well, as it is here. The play opens in disarray – there's a famine, and in this version, thick snow blankets the earth in downy fluff (kudos to set designer Julie Fox for that).
When Duke Frederick (Sean Arbuckle) seizes power from his sister (Seana McKenna), the latter escapes to the forest, prepared to live out her days in exile. Her daughter Rosalind (Sara Farb at her funniest and most endearing) brings up the rear, her trusted cousin Celia (Makambe K. Simamba, also excellent) in tow.
Of course, all hell breaks loose when, disguised as a man in the woods, Rosalind encounters Orlando (Christopher Allen) and convinces him to prove his love for … herself.
As You Like It is a play that starts sour but turns sweet by its final song – and there are many songs, composed in this production by Ron Sexsmith and Thomas Ryder Payne. Like most directors who have tackled this work, Abraham taps into the comedy of the play, the raunchy jokes and mistaken identities that prop up its second half. But what's refreshing about this As You Like It is Abraham's equal willingness to show the violence, grit and solitude of the Forest of Arden – the crushing weight of political exile.
As You Like It is a production of extremes, and Abraham's cast, a veritable 'greatest hits' of Stratford Festival actors and frequent Toronto players, drives the tale home without any weak links. Arbuckle, heartbreaking in 2023's Casey and Diana and radiant in last year's La Cage aux Folles, is terrifying here as the unfeeling duke. Andrew Chown, too, can be proud of his Stratford debut as Oliver – he's a fierce presence onstage who ably keeps up with the veterans who've played the cavernous Festival Theatre for years.
Steve Ross makes for a terrific Touchstone, a clown who lobs out bad jokes by the minute – and he's complemented well by Silvae Mercedes's Audrey. Jessica B. Hill, too, is a rock-solid Phoebe.
But it's As You Like It's leading trio that makes Abraham's production such an auspicious start to this year's festival. Farb, in particular, is wonderful – her crush on Orlando is touching and schmaltzy, and her scenes with Allen are laugh-out-loud funny. Farb and Simamba have swell chemistry as the sister-close cousins, as well.
On the design side, Abraham's production bears welcome resemblance to some of the director's more successful recent projects in Toronto. Imogen Wilson's sun-dappled lighting, especially, calls to mind the similarly nostalgic effect Kimberly Purtell achieved in Abraham's Uncle Vanya in 2022. Fox's rugged set and costumes, too, feel like they'd be right at home at Crow's Theatre – they're elegantly tailored, with an eye toward outdoorsy grunge.
Fans of Shakespeare and The Last of Us alike ought to be pleased by this As You Like It, and folks on either side of that aisle might be surprised by how Abraham's production wriggles and evolves over its two-and-a-half-hour runtime. As artistic director of Crow's, Abraham has long lobbied for audiences to put down their phone and head to the theatre – following this successful challenge to the high production values of prestige television, I'm more convinced than ever.