The excitement was palpable at the opening night of “As You Like It” at California Shakespeare Theater in Orinda. The 50-year-old company has been dark for several years, a casualty of the pandemic. During that time, artistic director Eric Ting departed, Clive Worsley took over as executive director, and for a time it was uncertain that this show would even open. (Thankfully, an emergency fundraising campaign was successful.)
Still, in a local summer season of Shakespeare that included the Magic Theatre’s brilliant new “translation” of “Richard II” for modern audiences, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival’s truly magical “The Tempest” and Marin Shakespeare Company’s goofily inventive take on “The Comedy of Errors,” this is a fairly lackluster “As You Like It.”
Perhaps part of the problem is simply the play itself. The first few acts can feel top-heavy, with bestie-cousins Celia and Rosalind frolicking and the warring familial factions among the royals and aristocrats: a Duke usurps his brother’s throne, so the brother flees to the Forest of Arden. Good Orlando too flees there to escape the evil machinations of his own brother, Oliver. And Rosalind and Orlando fall in mutual love.
Finally come the memorable pastoral and romantic scenes, as Rosalind is banished by the Duke, and she and her worshipful cousin escape to Arden, too, where Rosalind disguises herself as a man.
Director Elizabeth Carter starts with a stylized introduction to the cast members, showing how many different roles, and different genders, the actors will play. Other less self-consciously cute moments include charming little dance routines, with choreography by MaryBeth Cavanaugh.
For the most part, Carter’s diverse cast adeptly takes on those varied roles, playing around with gender-bending aspect of the script. For example, Celia’s adoration of her more dominant cousin takes on erotic undertones.
Among Carter’s interesting casting choices, petite Jed Parsario plays the tough wrestler Charles and the meek shepherd who’s hopelessly in love with the shepherdess Phoebe.
Chris Steele’s gift for raucous, smutty comedy is ideally suited for Touchstone the fool.
Nevertheless, there are missteps and missed opportunities.
In the early scenes between Sofia Ahmad as Celia and Sam Jackson as Rosalind, the merriment feels forced (nor does Jackson, in disguise, seem to struggle much to appear masculine). Graceful Wiley Naman Strasser (he’s a dancer as well as an actor) is an overly earnest, humorless Orlando.
On the other hand, as the melancholy, philosophical old man Jaques, local treasure Stacy Ross mines every scrap of wit and humor in the character—when Jaques is onstage, or even lurking in the wings or out in the audience, that’s pretty much all that matters.
And, as always, when Catherine Castellanos opens her mouth (she plays several roles), her power rings loud and clear.
Carter emphasizes the romance in this “As You Like It.”
The lights go golden and couples drift together in dreamlike sequences when love kicks in, as it tends to do ever so abruptly in Shakespeare’s plays—but it feels, well, too on-the-nose. And it comes at the expense of many of the built-in opportunities for comedy. When lovesick Orlando flits around the forest posting poorly written love poems to Rosalind, the whole human comedy of mixed genders and mixed agendas feels a bit heavy.
California Shakespeare Theater’s “As You Like It” continues through Sept. 29 at Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way, Orinda. Tickets are $25-$85 at calshakes.org.
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