AS YOU LIKE IT
Playing at:	MOUNT ROYAL’S SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK
Plays until:	August 25, 2007
Reviewed by:	Louis B.
	FULL REVIEW
User ratings:	(4 votes, average: 3.25 out of 5)  Loading …

William Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy As You Like It is a frothy meditation on love, betrayal and redemption.

Half the characters in the play are banished to the lush Arden Forest. The other half go in search of them so there’s a great deal of merry nonsense in that mini Garden of Eden.

For the most part, I really like what Martin Fishman has done with this trifle for Mount Royal’s Shakespeare in the Park’s companion piece to the company’s infinitely darker Macbeth.

Fishman really has a way with Shakespeare’s comedies.

It’s evident that, not only does he understand them, but he loves them and wants us to do the same.

Fishman intersperses the action of his As You Like It with music ranging from disco to flower power anthems accentuated by Rebecca Fishman’s jaunty choreography.

I would have loved to see the actors sing the songs rather than lip sync them but that might be asking way too much even if the do have Valerie Pearson as the play’s musical director.

Eschewing any hint of subtlety, Fishman’s talented cast members attack their roles with great comic gusto.

As the lovesick Orlando, Mike Tan is a true fool in love oblivious to the fact his lady love Rosalind (Julie Orton) is actually the young forest lad Ganymede who volunteers to teach Orlando how to woo and win his Rosalind.

Herein lies the only real problem with Fishman’s production.

Orton’s costume and wig accentuate her femininity instead of concealing it robbing the intended humour especially in her scenes with Orlando and those with Phebe (Hailey Carr) the shepherd girl who falls in love with the ethereal Ganymede.

Tan and Orton work so hard to so little avail in the scenes where Orlando must call Ganymede Rosalind and profess love.

Had she been disguised in say an Elvis wig, sideburns and even a little phoney pencil moustache and a man’s costume it would have been hilarious and Tan could have looked understandably awkward.

It’s such a shame this happened because Shauna Breslawski’s other costumes are so appropriately fun and funny.

Stephen Hair who plays the banished Duke Senior is hysterical in his second role as the shepherd Corin who carries a puppet lamb in his arms.

Also chewing up the scenery is Martin Evans as Orlando’s feeble servant Adam.

Just watching Evans attempt to maneuver the steps in Mount Royal’s outdoor theatre is hilarious.

Braden Grffiths is a most spirited Jacques who rails against love while Jordan Schartner is truly mischievous as the lusty Touchstone who’s determined to bed, if not wed, the dull virgin Audrey played with such sweet naivite by Kristy Lannan..

Fishman and his actors have found so many great belly laughs in As You Like It that it’s the kind of production that cries out to be seen more than once.

Shakespeare in the Park runs at Mount Royal College until the end of July when it moves into Prince’s Island Park for the month of August.

Bring a chair, cushion, blanket, snacks and bug spray.

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