‘As You Like It' finds wit and pleasant surprises in a 426-year-old play

Boston Globe

4 days ago

Young Rosalind (a playfully plucky Nora Eschenheimer) is dressed as a man for disguise and protection as she flees the fiefdom of her malevolent uncle, Duke Frederick (a thoroughly convincing Maurice Emmanuel Parent). The plan is to travel with her cousin Celia (an always effervescent Clara Hevia) and the court fool Touchstone (John Kuntz, marvelous as a walking, talking sight gag) to the distant Forest of Arden.
There, she rendezvouses with her benevolent father, the rightful Duke Senior (also Maurice Emmanuel Parent), who has already been exiled along with his most loyal and like-minded followers. Included is the perpetually despondent Jaques (the superb Paul Michael Valley, who meticulously mines all the meaning in the play's famous 'All the world's a stage' speech).
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Rosalind also runs into Orlando (an abundantly endearing Michael Underhill), who is at war with his brother Oliver (a wonderful Joshua Olumide). Orlando is the young gentleman who fell in love with Rosalind, and she with him, upon their first meeting in her uncle's court. In classic Shakespearean fashion, he is absurdly incapable of recognizing her in disguise, which opens up the delightful opportunity for Rosalind-as-Ganymede to give Orlando man-to-man lessons on how to best woo her hidden female self. Trouser plays use this device as much for its comedic opportunities as a chance to offer observations about identity and gender roles.
Productions of 'As You Like It' tend to sink or swim on the charm and fortitude of its Rosalind, the appeal and blind passion of its Orlando, and the two of them finding romantic and hormonal harmony. Here, Eschenheimer and Underhill are a convincing couple.
In the midst of all this fleeing, foraging, and flirting, 'As You Like It' does something Shakespeare's other plays do not: It takes a timeout from plot progression. Once in Arden, urgencies are suspended, deadlines are ignored, pressing problems are put on hold, and everyone is freed from the court's imperative to 'sweat . . . for promotion.' The forest is a place where nature itself seems to offer wisdom, guidance, and solace. According to Duke Senior, there are 'tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones.' There is also a short heigh-ho heavy sing-a-long, led by Jared Troilo as Amiens, a member of Senior's court, and accompanied on guitar by Peter DiMaggio, who was also responsible for writing the arrangements.
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The cast of "As You Like It."
Nile Scott Studios
Members of the court mingle with similarly disconnected denizens from the countryside (Remo Airaldi, Siobhán Carroll, Cleveland Nicoll, Patrick Vincent Curran, Kandyce Whittingham, Brooks Reeves, and Stephanie Burden). Everyone is searching for a place of belonging to regain a lost sense of self, regain their intellectual bearings, and restore their moral compass. And the play culminates in the glorious marriage of a quartet of lovers.
Under Maler's direction, and with the assistance of his team of scenic (Riw Rakkulchon), lighting (Eric Southern), and sound (Aubrey Dube) designers, the court is a dark, metallic-hued, Brutalist space intersected by chain-link fencing and plastered with graffiti-tagged political propaganda. Even the costuming (Miranda Giurleo) in the opening scenes is dark, modern, and restrictive.
Color, like Duke Senior and his family and friends, has been banished to the forest. When the characters leave their home behind to build a new community in the wild, they encounter an Arden as exotic as the Post-Impressionist backgrounds of Paul Gauguin paintings. The costuming follows suit.
Unfortunately, the expedient physical transition from court to countryside leaves way too much exposed and rusting metal in Arden's architecture. And the mechanism that lowers a foreboding wall to create an open and airy space requires actors to constantly walk around, leap over, and occasional trip on it for the remainder of the production. So, not quite Edenesque.
The same can be said for a few of the performances. Burden as Phebe, a shepherdess, is so over-the-top hungry for laughs that she seems to be a stowaway from 'Noises Off.' Reeves, as a country vicar, is similarly out of step.
Still, the ease with which this talented ensemble stays true to Shakespeare's prose and poetry within the modern staging it's given by the CSC makes this production soar. What Celia says about the Forest of Arden certainly applies to this play upon the Common: 'I like this place. And willingly could waste my time in it.'
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AS YOU LIKE IT
Play by William Shakespeare. Directed by Steven Maler. Presented by Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. At the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common through Aug. 10. Free.