As You Like It
Globe Theatre
Thursday, May 18
What do the 1970s and Shakespeare’s As You Like It have in common?
At the Globe Theatre, a lot. For the initial court scenes, we’re in the glam-rock era: the skin-tight shiny pants, the glitter, David Bowie. When the action moves to the Forest of Arden, the performers do an onstage mass costume change and suddenly everyone’s a hippie: flared corduroys, beads, bare feet. The shiny white set transforms easily into a one-tree forest, with clever lighting creating impressions of leaf-dappled sunlight.
In this astonishingly inventive production, Shakespeare’s words blend seamlessly with 20th century expressions and gestures, gender fluidity is multilayered and the 20-plus cast displays endless energy and boundless enthusiasm.
All performances are highly skilled and detailed. Among the most watchable is Craig Storey’s: ludicrously, fiercely melancholic as Jaques. Daniel Cromar makes an excellent Touchstone in a jacket that might have been decorated by Jackson Pollock; he clowns his way through the play, notably in scenes with shepherd Corin (Daniel McClymont) and the voluptuous Audrey (April McMillan Perkins). As Rosalind, Maegan Stedman-Ashford commands the audience’s attention with a strong and sympathetic performance.
Music, directed by Tobias Devereux, features throughout; cheerful renditions of songs including an exuberant It was a lover and his lass.
Director Thomas Makinson (who makes brief appearances as understudy for the part of Adam) is to be congratulated for a highly original three-hour production that never drags and exploits comic potential to the full. I hope to see more of his work before too long.
This is the Globe’s first substantial production for several months and one of its best in recent years. It was worth waiting for, and I hope is an indicator of good things to come.
The season runs until May 27.
Review by Barbara Frame
