Despite the warm rays of spring sun, there’s still a biting cold wind that envelops the Capital region and reaches straight into Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden.
Fortunately, although director James MacDonald’s Citadel Theatre interpretation of As You Like It starts with a wintry feel, it successfully morphs into a vibrant glade of enchantment where star-struck lovers revel in their heated passions.
Set in France’s Vichy regime, exiled courtiers sit on a stump and huddle around a feeble campfire. The snow has melted but there is a chill in the air as Duke Frederick has usurped his brother’s throne and rules with a tyrant’s iron fist.
By the end of the first act, his niece, the strong-willed Rosalind, and his daughter Celia have fled the court in disguise to the more pastoral Arden. And it is there they encounter Orlando, pining for the fair Rosalind by postering romantic odes on every tree.
Each of these characters finds a soul mate. But as the lovebirds fall into passionate declarations at first glance, Shakespeare makes it clear that the human heart is easily deceived. Love is tried and tested, and tested once more before its full liberating power can be enjoyed.
One of MacDonald’s big hurdles was finding an actress that could play the key role of Rosalind and yet transform herself into the incognito identity of Ganymede, a young man that schools Orlando in the ways of love.
By and large Rachael Johnston hits most of the right notes giving Rosalind/Ganymede energy, strength of character, open-heartedness and plucky spirit. A lovely chameleon, she also delivers Shakespeare’s language with fluidity and musicality. Yet as Ganymede, Johnston occasionally displays an inability to sustain a male body language that at times seems too feminine.
The troubled Orlando played by Ryland Alexander is an angry young man railing against his brother’s injustices. Alexander gives his Orlando 100 per cent and we see the emotionally starved, poverty-stricken Orlando transform from an impetuous puppy to mature young man bathed in love.
But it is most fitting that some of the most insightful comic warmth should come from Jaques, one of the Bard’s most famous world-weary philosophers, played with a subtle wit, humanity and nobility by John Kirkpatrick.
Kirkpatrick is one of those rare actors that speaks Shakespeare’s complex language with an effortlessness that is easy to understand. His wistful Seven Ages of Man soliloquy was quite simply poetry in flight where even pauses were filled with deep meaning.
Kevin Dennis injects an energetic, sly wit into his Touchstone; Tess Degenestein delivers a saucy, seductive shepherdess; and Michael Spencer-Davis as the dual dukes expertly conveys the opposite side of the same coin. Leah Oster (Francesca/Amiens), a young soprano, sang several numbers with vocal purity and sweetness, and Don Horsburgh’s music direction set the mood for wartime France.
In short, this is one Shakespeare production mounted with integrity, imagination and fun.
Review
As You Like It<br />Running April 28 to May 9<br />Citadel Theatre
