As You Like It Oakland Tribune Review

Courtesy of The Oakland Tribune

Thursday, July 15, 2004

Woman's Will's 'As You Like It' a far-out frolic

- Chad Jones - STAFF WRITER

SUMMER doesn't get much groovier than this.

You're lounging on a picnic blanket feasting on treats with friends and family, while a troupe of robustly talented women enliven "As You Like It," one of Shakespeare's most likable comedies.

Woman's Will, the all-female Shakespeare troupe, has once again perked up the summer theater scene with a fantastic free production that will hit nearly every key corner of the Bay Area.

"As You Like It," which opened last weekend in Berkeley, is in Oakland next weekend and hits parks in Pleasanton, Hayward, Mountain View and San Francisco before closing in mid-August.

This is theater at its most elemental, with a spare set by Jon Tracy to help focus the action and actors whose energy is entirely invested in lively storytelling.

Director Leslie McCauley adds some zest by taking Shakespeare's tale of nature lovers and youthful romance and setting it in swinging'60s London, where peace, love, hippies and fashion were all the rage.

Rather than being gimmicky, the concept is well used and actually helps make sense of Shakespeare's enchanted world.

Costumer Amy Nielson is working on a limited budget but makes effective use of late-'60s styles to add color and humor to this highly enjoyable park show.

When we first see Celia (Jenny Debevec), daughter to Duke Frederick, and her cousin Rosalind (Erin Merritt), daughter of the banished Duke Senior, they are ultra-stylish in hats and gowns that recall Jackie Kennedy's White House years.

Once the action shifts from the royal court to the forest of Arden, we're in the land of the hippies, so shag haircuts, vests, scarves and free-flowing fabrics are most definitely in.

As in most Woman's Will productions, the fact that women are playing both men and women is so unfussily and capably handled that it's easy to forget the play isn't supposed to be this way.

Gender bending is something Shakespeare enjoyed anyway, and never more so than in this play.

Rosalind has fallen in love with Orlando (a superb Rami Margron), who, like Rosalind, has also, conveniently, fled to the forest. Because she is on the run -- and because this is Shakespeare -- Rosalind is disguised as a young man named Ganymede.

Toying with Orlando, Rosalind befriends the young man, who has no idea she's really a woman. To complicate things, Rosalind tells Orlando that he needs to improve his courting skills, so she allows Orlando to practice on her.

He thinks he's pretend-wooing Rosalind via Ganymede, when he is actually making the real Rosalind's heart melt with every word.

So you've got a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman -- it's all so "Victor/Victoria."

Merritt and Margron have some of the best romantic chemistry in recent memory. Their first meeting is awkward, charming and delightful in all the right ways. And then their confusing courtship in the woods continues to build on that.

One of the wonderful things about "As You Like It" is that it celebrates friendship, loyalty and the virtues of nature without ever becoming sappy or tired. In addition to the close bond between Rosalind and Celia, we also see Orlando's deep commitment to elderly Adam (Deborah Ben-Eliezer) and the devotion inspired by Duke Senior (Sandra Jardin) among his forest followers (Jennifer Erdmann, Valerie Weak and Kendra Chell).

Performances are universally appealing here, with only Michele Beauvoir Shoshani's Jaques, who delivers the famous "Seven Ages of Man" speech that begins "All the world's a stage," not yet able to wrangle her melancholy character.

Clear, concise and grandly entertaining for a full two hours and 20 minutes, this "As You Like It" even has fun with music. Stephen Lew has composed music for Shakespeare's verse, and it sounds like traditional Elizabethan music with more than a hint of'60s sass thrown in for good measure.

Once again, Woman's Will has turned Shakespeare into some swingin' summertime fun.