Photo by Joan Marcus
Poised before the great tragedies, As You Like It has long been considered one of Shakespeare’s masterpieces. With Rosalind as its central representative, the drama explores life’s possible freedoms and illuminates how one may live and love in a confusing world. In The Bridge Project’s new staging of the classic (at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater), director Sam Mendes offers us fresh insights into the old comedy, and several fine performances will keep you enthralled with the Bard’s rich language and nuanced characters.
Shakespeare’s plot, based on Thomas Lodge’s novel Rosalynde, intertwines thematic threads of sibling rivalry, friendship, and romantic love. Though it’s impossible to retell the romantic tale in full detail here, the following can give you a broad idea of the narrative: The action opens with Orlando recounting to his old servant Adam how he has been cheated out of his inheritance by his eldest brother Oliver. Orlando’s growing discontent soon incites Oliver to arrange for a professional wrestler Charles to kill his brother in a fighting match. The contest takes place at the Court of Duke Frederick, a ruler who has usurped the power from his brother, Duke Senior, and banished him and his courtiers to the Forest of Arden. Things take an unexpected turn, however, when Orlando survives the deadly wrestling contest under the admiring eye of his future wife, Rosalind. Having fallen in love at first sight, Orlando and Rosalind reluctantly separate after the match, with Orlando escaping with Adam to the Forest of Arden. There he joins Duke Senior (Rosalind’s father) and his companions and the native country folk. In another twist of fate, Duke Ferdinand banishes Rosalind and his daughter Celia from Court. But instead of despairing about their misfortune, the malice-free Rosalind sees the exile as a potential cure for her love sickness. She disguises herself as the boy Ganymede, and her loyal cousin Celia accompanies her under the feminine disguise of Aliena. In their new personas, they depart the Court in pursuit of new freedom and true love in the Forest.
The cruelty lurking under the velvet surface of the Court is driven home time and again in this production. Without relying on fussy scenery (set design by Tom Piper), we get a clear picture of courtly life, tainted with luxury and equally infected with political ambition and long-standing jealousy. Shakespeare contrasts this leisured society with The Forest of Arden (named for Shakespeare’s mother Mary Arden), whose occupants tear the mask off the court’s affectations and pseudo-sophistication. Mendes uncluttered staging allows the characters to define themselves, in turn, in the artificial and natural milieus, revealing their emotional honesty or false hearts.
Only one actor in this production is a standout, and four are notable: Juliet Rylance, who gave us a tear-tugging Desdemona last season (Theater for a New Audience production), offers us a robust and intelligent Rosalind here. While nobody upstages her, the reliable Albert Epstein takes on the 80-year-old servant Adam (a role that Shakespeare himself played) with effortless results; Stephen Dillane possesses the Shakespearean chops for the cynical philosopher Jacques; the slight-framed Ron Cephas Jones at first seemed miscast as the wrestler Charles, but manages to pull the role off with his kick-boxing panache; and the expert Thomas Sadoski infuses Touchstone with just the right amount of rancid wit. Less effective was the excellent Christian Camargo, who plays the unrewarding role of Orlando. As the suitor of Rosalind, Camargo appears almost insipid in the romantic male lead, reciting his lines without any trace of passion.
You won’t find anything groundbreaking in this production. But it will give you a real opportunity to rediscover why Rosalind is one of the Bard’s great personages. Rylance’s Rosalind puts everybody in their place in the play. Her congenial wit outwits both the melancholic Jacques and the truant court jester Touchstone. Jacques gets some of the best speeches in all of Shakespeare, but he still pales besides the eloquent Rosalind. And though the aptly-named Touchstone (he mostly acts as a touchstone for Rosalind’s wit) can adroitly puncture the clichés of courtly life, he is no match for the superior mind of the young heroine. True, Rosalind is a sharp-tongued critic of romantic love. Yet in the course of the play, she clearly defends the reality of erotic love and deeply-felt human affections. Indeed she is an integrated personality who can charmingly engage even the world-weary Jacques. In fact, everybody she encounters in the play, she changes, albeit subtly, in some significant way.
Although this is more than a routine production of the romantic comedy, it only occasionally feels inspired. And surprisingly, the most memorable moments come during the Epilogue. This final scene is conventionally reserved for Rosalind to speak in confidence to the audience, following the departure of the rest of the company from the performance space. But Mendes ingeniously has Orlando remain on stage, eavesdropping on Rosalind’s reflective speech on human love and life. Having the two lovers onstage here (impersonated by the real-life married couple, Mr. Camargo and Ms. Rylance) breaks with theatrical tradition--but it deftly reinforces the reality of love in this happiest comedy of Shakespeare.
In its second year, The Bridge Project (presented by The Old Vic and Neal Street Productions) is an international enterprise devoted to breathing new life into old classics. And though this current production is not flawless, it certainly can make you see the Bard’s masterwork with fresh eyes.
The Brooklyn Academy of Music at the Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton Street.
Tickets are $35-$95, phone (718) 636-4100 or visit tickets@BAM.org
As You Like It runs through March 13th.
Next up in The Bridge Program is The Tempest, February 14th –March 13th.