A production of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” but the set looks like the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone and everyone is bisexual (and not in the implicit, subtextual Elizabethan way but in an explicit, mid-2010s identity politics way). Usually I can’t help but roll my eyes at that sort of thing.
But I couldn’t roll my eyes at the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival’s “As You Like It” — although it was pretty much that — because good acting is good acting; good direction is good direction; good sets and costumes are good sets and costumes; and ultimately, a good staging is a good staging no matter how snarky I am. A good script is a good script too, but with Shakespeare, that’s a given.
The show starts upbeat with a country music opening number. The choreography is “Cotton Eye Joe”-adjacent in a good way.
This production doesn’t linger over the first two acts. They set the drama in motion, they establish the rapport between Rosalind and Celia and they get on with it. These two actresses’ chemistry — Abigail Gillian and Julia Valen respectively — is big. It, along with some A-list clowning by Tim Merkle as the wrestler Charles, adds a lot of buoyancy to these acts which are written slightly straighter than the rest of the play. I think the decision to make Monsieur and Madame Labou ambiguously polyamorous was also an attempt in this direction, although it didn’t land for me.
I should also mention Adam, played by Mary Neufeld. Some of the gender swaps seemed a little arbitrary (why does Olivia need to be made a lesbian?), but I loved this one. An actress brings an interesting touch to this sort of “faithful old manservant” role. It doesn’t hurt that Neufeld is immensely charismatic as Adam and also as the shepherd Corin.
The company really starts cooking with gas when we reach “the Forest of Arden.” It’s the heart of the play, its stylings and its sensibilities. And, of course, it’s where the romance between Orlando (Felix Teich) and Rosalind finally takes off. This actor-actress pair has romantic chemistry —not in a heart melting “Romeo and Juliet” way, but as a consequence of how bubbly and stylish and smart their dialogue is.
It’s also here where the jester Touchstone (Brennan Caldwell) blossoms. When Merkle clowns, it’s physical. Drunk Elizabethan rubes would love him [compliment!]. When Brennan clowns, though, he’s more like Paul Lynde. Not that he can’t get physical. His leaping, prattling tirade at the start of the fifth act was so funny it elicited spontaneous applause from the opening night audience. Brennan tugs on the words a bit, adding a “homo” joke here and some chatter there. I’m usually fascistic about these sorts of things — the text is already a masterpiece, so unless you’re better than Shakespeare, which no one is, why meddle? — but these calls feel cosmically correct, even the moment when he gets so overwhelmed he has to run to the piano and do Liza.
The rest of the supporting cast flourish too. Silvius and Phebe (Noah Sim and Melíza Gutierrez respectively) are perfectly matched, the former bringing the comedy and the latter bringing the melodrama. Jaques’s goodbye at the end — especially the little touch with the prop — is heartwarming and heartbreaking. Mark Young plays a bizarre grab bag of characters, among them a touchy-feely Anglican minister who you know is suspect because unlike the other characters — who are dressed like Vampire Weekend fans — looks like a Deadhead. Gabriel Armstrong, the cast’s singer, does his Shakespeare lyrics justice. His performance of the last two songs are particularly moving.
One of them proceeds one of two moments in this production where director Sara Holdren takes a sudden left turn into “Midsommar” territory. I am indifferent about the first of these interludes. The second one, though, is genius. It takes advantage of a massive (read: truly massive) puppet by Greg Corbino and Young’s deep, voice-of-the-Lord-your-God baritone. I think the sudden weirdness, which might not fit elsewhere, fits especially well here because it coincides with a correspondingly crazy deus ex machina moment in the script.
All in all, the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival has a hit on its hands. The cast gels. The stage is a feast for the eyes. The director gets it: this “As You Like It” knows when to be fun as hell and when to take itself seriously. See it!
The Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival’s production of “As You Like It” runs at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center until Sept. 1, evening performances at 7:30pm and matinee performances at 2:00pm, tickets at https://performingarts.nd.edu/.
