The Stratford Festival Theatre Review: Shakespeare’s As You Like It
By Ross
The oppressed workers come in, hauling heavy bags of feed, “quickly“, they are told, under threat of gunfire from machine guns held by armed guards. It’s an unexpectedly dark beginning, feeling more like one of Shakespeare’s history plays centered on war, rather than this celebrated pastoral comedy, written by William Shakespeare sometime around 1599. As directed sharply and clearly by Chris Abraham (Stratford’s Much Ado About Nothing; Crow’s The Master Plan), As You Like It finds something akin to a two-spirited approach to the worlds displayed and unpacked in this captivating act of conjuring. Director Abraham writes in his notes about the pivotal time of uncertainty that was occurring when Shakespeare wrote this play. “Queen Elizabeth was in her 41st year of reign, aging, and the question of succession loomed over England.” In this uncertain time, when the economy and food supply system were so volatile, shaped by inflation, unemployment, and poor harvests, the formula of this unwrapping feels shockingly relevant, with our current Southern neighbour threatening our own country’s sovereignty, initially with forced economic instability, and occasionally with so much more.
Abraham, with the sharply defined help from set and costume designer Julie Fox (Stratford’s Love’s Labour’s Lost), lighting designer Imogen Wilson (Crow’s Wights), and sound designer Thomas Ryder Payne (Coal Mine’s People, Places and Things), create a tyrannically controlled world of oppression and threats, centered around the hard edged Duke Frederick (Sean Arbuckle) banishing his older sibling, now, in the Stratford Festival‘s dynamic production, regendered as the strong-willed empathetic older sister, “The Duchess“, royally well-played by Seana McKenna (Stratford’s Les Belles-Soeurs), into the Forest of Arden. There in the dark, cold snow of winter, the banished Duchess gathers her loyal followers together, giving them courage and a new way to see the world. That hopeful stance transforms their framework (and our own) and brings forth the colors of spring when the second half of this captivating production ushers in a new light.
It’s a beguiling contemplation between urban and rural, but also, in a way, a framework between the United States and Canada, with Canada representing a wooded safe retreat for forced-out exiles, rebels, and those who disagree with the undeserving new ruler of their homeland. Not only did the Duke force out the rightful leader of the land, but also all those who stand loyal with the Duchess, a stand that eventually includes her daughter, Rosalind. It’s a framework that feels very current and dangerously possible down south, with the tyrannical leader proclaiming himself above the rule of law, almost like a King, as he ignores his own Supreme Court and the rulings that go against his signed ‘proclamations’.
Rosalind, deliciously embodied by the wonderful Sara Farb (Stratford’s King Lear), was only able to remain as long as she did because of her strong alliance and friendship with the daughter of Duke Frederick, Celia, delightfully portrayed by the very game and able Makambe K. Simamba (Soulpepper/Obsidian’s Three Sisters). Magnificently portrayed, the two have a bond that runs as deep as if they were loving sisters, and when Rosalind is suddenly banished, basically because of the Duke’s paranoia and desire for unquestioned adoration (sound like an orange monster we know!), Celia is determined to go with her into the woods and find a new world-order where devotion is deserved and love reigns supreme. But not before they go to a magnificently physically realized wrestling match, courtesy of choreographer Adrienne Gould (Stratford’s Grand Magic), where they meet and engage with the dashing Orlando, the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys, played earnestly well by the handsome Christopher Allen (Tarragon’s Redbone Coonhound). Orlando’s eyes meet squarely with Rosalind’s most magically, and an attachment blossoms in an instant, even among the caged snow-falling energy of the oppressed new world of the Duke.
Naturally, the two escaping women must don a disguise, for Shakespearean comedic safety and security in the deep, dark woods. Rosalind dynamically disguises herself as a young mustached boy named Ganymede, and together with a newly named sister/cousin and their trusted jester-clown Touchstone, hilariously well played by Steve Ross (Stratford’s La Cage Aux Folles), they fly into the woods, where mistaken identities and multiple romantic entanglements await them all. This framing includes the handsome Orlando accompanied by his trusted old-man servant Adam, dutifully portrayed by John Ng (Studio 180/fu-GEN’s The Chinese Lady). Those two have found themselves fleeing into those same woods trying to escape Orlando’s vindictive eldest brother, Oliver, played solidly by Andrew Chown (Crow’s Bad Roads), who soon enough is forced into the woods by the Duke to seek out Orlando and bring him back, basically, alive or dead.
It’s a grand magic set-up, thanks to Shakespeare and this magnificently crafted production, that transforms the cold snow-falling world of tyranny over the interval into a colorful spring-like forest world of sheepherders and shepherdesses, where love, empathy, and a few songs prevail. The light and fence that had crowded them into spaces of control and cold, shifts in tone and breadth, expanding the Shakespearean frame musically far beyond the confines of that lovely thrust, with melodies delivered most magically by the wonderful musician/singer Amiens, beautifully played by Gabriel Antonacci (Stratford’s The Diviners). Through truth, loyalty, and song, the masterful cast transform their harsh reality into new possibilities for acceptance and connection, support and safety.
That one unique creation in this whole stratosphere, as always, is the melancholic traveler, Jaques, gorgeously portrayed here at the Festival by Aaron Krohn (Stratford’s Spamalot), who wanders and lives within the Forest of Arden as one of the exiled Duchess’ noblemen. Yet, structurally, he takes no part in the unfolding of the plot. He deliciously confines himself to wry commentary and sly exchanges two steps removed, delivering one of Shakespeare’s best-known speeches, “All the world’s a stage,” with elegance and wit, but from a place of observance. In opposition, Shakespeare has gifted us an equal with Touchstone, the fool who speaks wisdom to all that will listen, including Jaques. Touchstone, gorgeously delivered by Ross, is the parodist who must love what he parodies, delivering whimsical math jokes to ‘ewe and ewe and ewe‘, involving himself in the love that exists in the woods. While in opposition, Jaques is the extreme cynic who cannot be cured of melancholy because he likes himself the way he is. Together, they harmonize, most beautifully and wisely, the two follies and moods of the worlds they navigate, giving contrast and shape to each other’s fine form in a manner that elevates and expands the wood and the world. In one study of Shakespeare’s characters, William Hazlitt wrote:
Jaques is the only purely contemplative character in Shakespeare. He thinks, and does nothing. His whole occupation is to amuse his mind, and he is totally regardless of his body and his fortunes. He is the prince of philosophical idlers; his only passion is thought; he sets no value upon anything, but as it serves as food for reflection. He can “suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs.” – Hazlitt, William (1854). Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays.
He is a true and remarkable formulation, unlike any other, and we admire and empathize with the lone figure, deliciously embodied by Krohn. Yet, it’s Ross’s Touchstone that continually makes us laugh and desirous to join in with as the play herds us lovingly into Shakespeare’s folly. Orlando and Rosalind’s playful enactments, cleverly staged and hilariously rolled about in, result in not just one or two weddings, but four. All brought forth with honor and charm by a cast who is as bright and light as the first half was dark and threatening. The couples: Orlando and Rosalind, Oliver and Celia, Silvius (Michael Man – Shaw’s The Orphan of Chao) and Phebe (Jessica B. Hill), and Touchstone and Audrey (Silvae Mercedes), all find their way into love and marriage in the final scene as naturally as can be. It’s swift and joyous, with the final topping of reverse fortune arriving in the form of Jaques de Boys (Evan Mercer), another brother to Orlando and Oliver, informing all that Duke Frederick has also found his way from dark to light and repented his tyrannical ways, giving the crown back to his older sister, the Duchess, who accepts it with grace and honor.
Finally, winter has completely retreated from the Festival Stage, and the summer’s light fills the space with joy and love, almost too suddenly. Yet, we happily breathe in the good, clean air and the somewhat ridiculousness of those final marriage costumes. The other Jaques, ever engagingly melancholic, declines their sweet invitation to return to the courtly world they once had to escape from, preferring to stay as he is in the forest. Farb’s magnificently created Rosalind, in the silliest of dresses (no idea where that idea came from), speaks directly to us all, commending the form and the frame with gaiety and joy. We can help but join with her in her delight and honest care.
The ending epilogue, like the whole production, is as pleasurable as any of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies, staged to perfection by Abraham, and delivered with light and love into our laps by a cast and crew most wonderful. George Bernard Shaw once commented that As You Like It lacked the high artistry of Shakespeare, with Shaw liking to think that Shakespeare wrote this play as more of a “mere crowdpleaser, and signalled his own middling opinion of the work by calling it As You Like It—as if the playwright did not agree“. Also, within this magical rendering, Ross’s Touchstone, with his Scottish sheepherder, after bidding the audience to sing along with farm animal notes, jokes in a manner that might, at least in my mind, suggest that maybe the play should really be called As Ewe Like It. (That’s my bad joke, not his.) But setting all good (and bad) jokes aside, the 2025 season of the famed Stratford Festival opens delightfully and magically strong with a spirited two-toned enlightenment that is As You Like It, in just the way we absolutely love it.
