As You Like It review

In the fantastical forest of Arden, time seems to stand still as a merry band of exiles and lovesick runaways embrace new identities that authentically reflect their inner passions. With a cast composed mostly of actors aged over 70, Omar Elerian’s quietly audacious reframing of Shakespeare’s bittersweet romance finds fresh and unexpected resonances in the familiar text.

Here, the wisdom and the frailties of age are explicitly contrasted with the recklessness and exuberance of youth. With the play’s principal characters now depicted as advanced in years, there’s an unhurried tenderness to the love that blossoms between the various couples, while the jealousies and dynastic rivalries that drive much of the plot feel especially bitter.

Elerian plays up the comic potential of the atypical casting, with frequent sight gags and silly asides. Though the energy dips in places – the subplot involving shepherds Silvius and Phoebe feels especially superfluous – there are some compelling, inventive ideas on display, too. An intriguing framing device implies that the performers are attempting to recreate a version of the play that they performed decades before, from memory, and a new epilogue composed by Robin Soans sublimely recreates the wit and warmth of Shakespeare’s language.

Ana Inés Jabares-Pita’s sparse, realistic set initially seems to place the action in a perfectly ordinary rehearsal room, bare except for a few chairs and ranks of harsh halogen strip lights hanging overhead. But as the actors immerse themselves more deeply in the world of the play, more whimsical elements are introduced: swords and flower crowns, brightly coloured fabrics, hunting trophies.

Continues...