As You Like It is one of Shakespeare’s more iconic pieces. You have Shakespearean motifs, such as the philosophical fixation of Love’s Labours Lost, and the Robin Hood theme and out-of-the-blue reform ending of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. It also presages the girl-woos-boy-while-disguised-as-a-boy model used (to better effect) in Twelfth Night, and The Tempest’s usurpers undone in the wilderness with Greek gods as wedding officiants.
Seattle Shakespeare Company’s gentle, endearing production of As You Like It (through June 24; tickets: $22-$38) keeps the familiar fresh while avoiding its pitfalls.
The more unique images from the play are a wrestling match and a lunatic lover penning terrible poems to his lady and pinning them on trees. It also features one of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches delivered by the morosely philosophical Jacques (a solid David Pichette). A murmur of recognition passes through the audience in the Center House Theatre as he launches into the Seven Ages of Man speech: “All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players…”
The players in this production are capable, especially in the lead and supporting roles, though a few minor players could focus more on their tongues and less on their hands. Those leads include Keith Dahlgren as the sympathetic-yet-noble deposed Duke. The Duke’s daughter, Rosalind (Hana Lass) remains at court as best friend to the usurper’s daughter, Celia (Rebecca Olson). There she falls in love at first sight with Orlando (Nathan Graham Smith).
That first sight comes in the wrestling match, which Orlando’s older brother had hoped would kill his sibling. Orlando wins the match but learns of his brothers’ further plots against him and flees to the woods. Simultaneously the usurping Duke banishes Rosalind who flees, accompanied by Celia and disguised as a man for safety’s sake, to exile in the same woods as her father and Orlando.
The fire in this production comes courtesy Lass, who carries the central romantic relationship. Under her care Rosalind’s scheme to test Orlando in trials of wooing feels as natural as possible for such a contrivance. Lass and Olson play the early scenes lightly, which heightens the pathos of their fortunes’ turn despite the darkness of their circumstances at the very start of the play. An opening tableau may be an attempt to establish the color of those circumstances but it is too fleeting and inexpressive to add much more than a left frame to the narrative.
Darragh Kennan has crossed the International Fountain from his many recent appearances at Seattle Rep to give us a deadpan Touchstone driven by the internal energy of a yipping terrier. (He puts all that energy to bear–to little effect–in his final witticism, the argument of the seventh cause. But the speech may be beyond help as changes in education have robbed it of context. He comes off far better in the modern additions and asides that pepper his performance. By the time that last speech comes around we are willing to let him prattle while we indulgently, if not knowingly, laugh.)
Jon Luytens draws notice in the smaller roles of Le Beau and Amiens with the clarity of his language and easy charisma. He also does nice work on vocals, guitar, and ukulele in the several songs sprinkled through the production.
Those songs, by Sarah McGuinn, force Shakespeare’s lyrics into soft-alt-pop settings with live on-stage instruments bolstered by backing recordings. The fit is a little imperfect but easy on the ears and pleasantly current. The music is at its best in the interpolation of Christopher Marlowe’s The Passionate Shepherd to His Love and a dance near the end of the show. Crystal Dawn Munkers’s choreography is spectacular in the strength of the characterization and storytelling. It is easy to believe we’ll see a lot more work from her as both choreographer and director as well.
Craig B. Wollam’s sets and Doris Black’s costumes convey us on the play’s emotional journey. We begin in the ice-bound formalism of a palace winter; forest banishment comes in Louis XIV style. The costumes reach ahead toward the regency period as the play progresses through the warming spring and blossoming summer of lovers and rightful rulers gathering in the woods. The literal blossoming in that forest is almost too cute. Chain-link fencing brings a nicely contemporary MMA touch to the wrestling scene, which barely avoids descent into pro-wrestling parody.
Director George Mount’s judicious cutting removes some of the looser tangents and details, including the Greek goddess, and the pace keeps our attention throughout. With mostly articulate and knowing acting, and unfussy staging, it makes for a light and fun evening of romance.
