Ryland Thomas as Orlando and Kalen Harriman as Rosalind in As You Like It. Photo by Bob Goodfellow.
By James E. Trainor III
Iowa City - As You Like It is a delightful piece with many amusing devices, clever exchanges and hilarious set pieces. Its principals are bold and witty, and its clowns are among the most memorable of the entire canon. In fact, it's my personal favorite Shakespeare comedy. However, it's also a somewhat difficult play, as translation to the stage can be rather slippery. The issue is one of tone: what starts off as a bristling melodrama reveals itself to be, at turns, a refreshing pastoral and a satirical examination of gender politics, the nature of repentance, and the duality of humankind. What's rolling along as a slightly bawdy romp can suddenly become powerfully introspective, and the sheer number of one-hundred-eighty degree character turns and improbable coincidences can be perplexing to producing companies as well as audiences.
It's always intriguing to see such a play produced, to see how the director and the actors will face such challenges. Director Theodore Swetz has done a marvelous job with this show, incorporating the disparate elements into a cohesive whole, exploring the intriguing moral and philosophical questions it proposes, and guiding Riverside's talented troupe through a number of simply hysterical bits of comedy.
Swetz focuses on the transformative aspect of the forest of Arden, the way it frees people up to be what they want to be. Rosalind (Kalen Harriman) is clever -- downright witty -- courageous and righteous at the court of Frederick, but those virtues quickly raise the ire of the tyrannous Duke, and she must make her own way in the world. The moment we see her step into the forest, she is an entirely different person, and not just because she is wearing man's clothes. Her heart, before very heavy at the way the world has oppressed her, suddenly releases and she responds to the beautiful world around her with delight. Harriman establishes this efficiently with a sweeping look around the stage and a newly confident gait. Sean Ketchum Johnson's set design and Genevieve V. Beller's costumes set up the divide between the two worlds quite well. Swetz's vision ties it all together.
"I believe we all need a little bit of 'Arden' in our lives," he writes in his director's notes. "A place to go and rethink... a place to escape to -- and simplify your life in order to gain wisdom." For Swetz, As You Like It is about the twin worlds of human society and nature, and the uniquely human ability to completely reinvent oneself when given some time alone to think. Everything seems a little better with after a breath of fresh air and a joyful tune. The banished Duke (Ron Clark) and his followers, far from brooding over their misfortunes, are playing at Robin Hood, creating an utopian society founded on pacifism and brotherhood. Orlando (Ryland Thomas) is a persecuted prisoner at court, but in the woods he is a young man in love and a giddy poet. And Rosalind's affection for Orlando, before a burden, is now an absolute delight, and she is an excellent position to get to know him, safe behind the identity she has created for herself.
Harriman is excellent as Rosalind. It's fun to witness her clever ploys, hear her sharp tongue at wordplay, and watch her resist the urge to swoon in the presence of her love (only to roll about on the stage and squeal with glee as soon as he is gone). These two quite different modes of Rosalind -- subtle and crafty but light-hearted and nearly overwhelmed by the force of her love -- seem entirely consistent within Harriman's portrayal.
When she counsels Orlando to "pretend" that she, who is disguised as Ganymede, is actually Rosalind, so that Ganymede can dissuade Orlando from loving by exposing him to the faults of women, we have a premise rich with comic promise. But Thomas' earnestness and and Harriman's barely-contained tension tell the other side of the story: the game that Orlando and Rosalind play is actually a very serious one.
"Make doors on a woman's wit and it will out at the casement," Rosalind tells Orlando. Ostensibly Ganymede is playing the misogynist here, lambasting the infidelity of woman, but when Rosalind speaks it the line takes on another meaning: she, a woman, though smarter than her male protectors, is often kept silent by them. Only through this comic charade can she truly say the very important things that need to be said. When she pretends to chide Orlando for his fickleness, or lampoon her own faults, she's actually testing the waters in a way that has very high emotional stakes. Shakespeare often puts his more intellectual lovers through trials like these -- Beatrice and Benedick spar viciously and Petruccio's treatment of Kate is difficult for our modern sensibilities to stomach -- and we know that the lovers will be the better for it because they've moved past the love-as-poetry stage into something truly interpersonal and emotionally challenging. The setup in As You Like It is particularly ingenious: the lovers, under the increasingly shaky pretense that they're not actually talking to each other, are able to bear their souls with complete candor. It is at once a hilarious piece of farce and a gripping love scene, cleverly written, carefully directed, and acted with energy and honesty.
Eva Louise Balistrieri, who plays Celia, is particularly good in these scenes. She stands in for the audience's growing amusement and disbelief as Rosalind's scheems get more and more out of hand, but at the same time she's a caring confidante to her friend. Balistrieri is a generous scene partner, responding warmly to Harriman, and her big, funny reactions to the main action add volumes to each scene.
Ryland Thomas is very likable as Orlando. He starts the show with a bang, energetically setting the stage for his rivalry with Oliver (Eric Damon Smith). He and Harriman have great chemistry; they're equally as good at squaring off in witty banter as they are at swooning over each other. Thomas' Orlando is courageous and constant; he won't be shaken by Rosalind's games and it's easy to root for him.
There are plenty of other excellent performances in this production of As You Like It. Tim Budd is quite entertaining as Touchstone, the fool who follows Rosalind and Celia to the forest. He's relentlessly clever and very quick with a punchline; his jolly spirit is contagious. An equally effective performance comes from Jim Van Valen, who plays the melancholy Jacques. Van Valen really gets to the heart of this character, a keen seeker with a restless mind. His "all the world's a stage" speech is beautiful and thought-provoking, and the tone of Jacques' playful daydreaming is so endearing that we feel he's earned it when he trades his jacket for Touchstone's coat of motley.
Silvius (F. Tyler Burnet) and Phoebe (Kelly Gibson) are yet two more well-beloved characters from this comedy. Burnet's Silvius, completely hopeless in his pursuit of Phoebe, is absolutely adorable. His vocal and physical work strikes just the right tone, and he is pitiful without ever being completely pathetic. Gibson is simply hilarious as Phoebe, both in opposition to Burnet (her attempt to literally strike Silvius dead with her eyes is a great bit of physical comedy), and in her relentless leaping at Harriman.
Laugh-out-loud farce, introspective clowns, timeless love stories: just when you thought this show couldn't have anything more, it also has music. The songs that are sung live during the show are really lovely; John Mistler's compositions are beautiful and the company does them justice, particularly Jonathan Bulter-Duplessis and Elyse Edelman. The scoring is good in places as well -- particularly to set the mood as the principals flee Frederick's court -- but it seemed unnecessary when used to signify the "love at first sight" moments. For Celia and Oliver, who have very little stage time to build a relationship, something is probably needed, but it feels a bit melodramatic when used for Rosalind and Orlando. That isn't too distracting though, as this play seems to wind through a variety of tones as it progresses.
That versatility of style makes for a very challenging play, and Swetz's direction pulls it off fantastically. There are three moments near the end of As You Like It that have always stood out to me as peculiar and improbable, but they all flow naturally out of Swetz's passionate, thoughtful approach. The first is Oliver's offstage transformation, which consists of him forgiving his brother after Orlando saves him from first a snake, then a lioness. Eric Damon Smith tells this odd tale well and his reformed Oliver is so honest and kind-hearted, in contrast to the melodramatic villain of the first act, that Smith's performance helps us believe in the power of kindness and forgiveness to change people for the better.
Another difficult moment is the entrance of Hera (Jody Hovland), the goddess of marriage, in the final scene. Hera appears to herald Rosalind's entrance on what is to be her wedding day; she is to be reunited with her father and married to Orlando. Critics have dismissed this as a deus ex machina, a cynical plot device necessary to wrap up all the threads of Rosalind's plan. When Hovland appears in full regalia, however, it doesn't seem out of place at all -- her speeches do no more than reinforce what Rosalind has already said, and the magical moment actually flows organically out of Touchstone's ironic speech about how to civilly settle disputes at court with a well-placed "if."
Duke Frederick's reformation, which also happens offstage, is another challenging moment. This is done light-heartedly, with a bit of winking at the audience, but the theme of reconciliation and second chances has been explored so thoroughly and so thoughtfully by the production that we're able to forgive Shakespeare one last improbable plot point. Ron Clark is double-cast as both Dukes, and the stark contrast between the over-the-top villainy of Frederick and the wise, friendly leadership of his older brother lets us see what could be. It's almost as if people who come into the forest are able to shed their court identities, becoming their true selves in the absence of any need for pretense.
These moments, which stood out to me as bizarre and distracting when I first read As You Like It, revealed to me their deeper meanings in Swetz's production. I came away from the show with a renewed appreciation for my favorite Shakespearean comedy. I highly recommend you go see this production: it's funny, it's clever, and it stands as a celebration of the spirit of self-determination.
As You Like It runs through July 8, in repertory with The Merchant of Venice. Performances are at Lower City Park in Iowa City. Tickets are $17-39.
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