As You Like It : some exceptional performances in an unequal production

As You Like It : some exceptional performances in an unequal production

Orlando and Charles, (Alex Furber and Zachary Council) Photo Helen Mott. As You Like it    based on the work by William Shakespeare   and directed by Richard Sheridan Willis.

 

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.

Set for As You Like It  with cast. Photo Connie Nozzolillo

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

 

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