As You Like It : some exceptional performances in an unequal production
Richard Sheridan Willis, the new artistic director of the Saint-Lawrence Shakespeare Festival comes to his new position with an impressive background of experience in Britain, US and Canada where he worked with theatres in Toronto (Citadel Theatre, Tarragon Theatre)
His choice of As You Like It, a deceptively light-hearted and free-wheeling pastoral romance might have seemed a good way to seduce the summer audiences in Ontario and nearby New York State and it will probably work. Nevertheless, one has the distinct impression that Willis is not yet too sure of his audience and in trying to appeal to a great variety of tastes, he has perhaps overlooked the most obvious.
This work, which retains the original text, revolves around the quarrel between two brothers , Orlando and Oliver, The banishment of Orlando and of his uncle the Duke, after Frederick has usurped his portion of Orlando’s inheritance. The banished are all sent off to the Forest of Arden where they live with their merry band of Robin Hood-like characters , and where all the brothers, sisters and cousins are eventually reconciled after much intrigue and playful deception. However disguises and several parallel love stories become the focus of the plot as the banished Duke (Quincey Armorer) is joined by his feisty daughter Rosalind, disguised as a boy played by Katherine Gauthier and by her good friend Cecilia (Rose Napoli), the child of the usurping Duke Frederick also disguised as Ganymede’s companion . The young women stand out in this game as they assume strong roles, especially as love becomes the motivating force for everything. Rosalind disguised as Ganymede woos Orlando in her own very special way, creating much ambiguity, complexity,in order to test young Orlando who falls under her spell as man and as a woman.
Other individuals emerge from this pastoral world as they are attracted to each other, mock each other, and take part in a great romp in the woods, spurred on in this production by interludes of Texas-style country music, Hillbilly banjos and guitars and even some lyrics and music by actor , musician and composer Melissa Morris whose songs recapitulate events that relate the woes of the lovers to form a truly pastoral chorus.
This international fairy tale where everyone lives happily ever after, mixes all the possible references and eliminates certain characters from the original text. Those choices pose no problem. What does stand out is the extreme inequality of the performances , uneven amounts of experience and what generally seems to be a different approach to the spoken word which creates a feeling of stylistic and acting incoherence. This group does not yet feel like an ensemble but rather like a mixture of parts of unequal value which have not yet found a vision that makes them all flow together. The new artistic director certainly has his work cut out for him.
Certain moments were magic. Lord Jaques attending the banished Duke in the forest , played by a superb Elizabeth Saunders enters like a true noble of unidentifiable gender. When she speaks we feel we are transported off to one of the great stages of the world. She /he incarnates dignity, masterful domination of the spoken word because each sound produced meaning and thus, the text in its ensemble, was given a life of its own even when the actor whispered, or uttered a single word. Even her silence was eloquent. Saunders listens to the text, changes tones, and lives the role intensely. It was an immense pleasure to watch this individual as she incarnated what Willis meant when he wrote in the program: “Suddenly gender became blurred… masculine and feminine didn’t seem as clear-cut” when referring to an all-male production of As You Like It he had seen at the Old Vic in 1967. This is one of the rare times I have ever seen a performance that seemed to rise above all the stereotypes of gender and find a form of its own. Jaques is the voice of that monologue “All the world’s a stage” where he/she breaks down human life into seven ages…”the infant, the whining boy, the lover etc etc.. Later in Act II the Fool Touchstone , played by a magnificent young actor, Jesse Nerenberg, responds to Jaques’ provocation with his own monologue as that “strange beast” who proves his talent as a great wit by taking verbal quarrels to a seventh degree.
Jesse Nerenberg as Touchstone, incarnates to perfection the professional court clown , a sharp witted, elegant urban creature who flies far above the rest of the country bumpkins with his monologue and other moments that parody Jaque’s own speech about the seven ages of man, easily stealing each of his scenes by his nimble gestures, his intepretations of those bits of twisted rhetoric, by the ease with which he makes playful irony ooze out of his text, so that some of Shakespeare’s most convoluted moments become crystal clear. bringing them into the contemporary mode.
Of course Vanessa Imeson’s beautiful costumes were a pleasure to behold and her delicious display of styish boots took us far from the forest and into the realm of Nordstrom in the Rideau Centre. Why not? That was perfect parody.
As for the rest of the performances there were moments that were quite good. Zach Council’s transformations into a wrestler, a lover and a simpleton, became physical performances which worked very well. Quincey Armorer incarnated both feuding uncles/fathers with enormous class and Jamie Mac was quite touching as Oliver the usurping brother but I found most of the show was much less stimulating.
Rosalind missed so many nuances and didn’t seem to hear her text as she might have and there was a lot of yelling which did not help matters. More work around the table was forthcoming for sure. Orlando and the young men in love had difficulty convincing us they meant what they said. The broadly comic moments with Phoebe and her Texas accent scratched the eardums, as did her country style singing . Nor did the other musicians make much of an impression because they appeared to be weak parodies of themselves which spoiled the effect. There were moments of dialogue that dragged and other moments when the characters had enormous difficulty giving any life to their exchanges because they seemed uncomfortable with Shakespeare’s text.
Of course some of these young people lacked experience but a strong director might have identified the weaker elements to help fill in the gaps.. One sensed that this staging counted mainly on the love interests to tickle the fancy of a younger audience but that certainly was not enough because there is so much in this text to be enjoyed that a lot more work on the passage from the text to the acting space might have made an enormous difference . Nevertheless, this is an inaugural season so it cannot all be perfect. We now have to watch the company closely to see how it evolves in the upcoming seasons.
As You Like It as well as The Taming of the Shrew continue in the amphitheatre in Prescott until August 18. For times, tickets and other events , see the site: www.stlawrenceshakeskpeare.ca or call 613-925-5788