As You Like It... IN A PARK!

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Public Theater and the public themselves have shown their love - as hopefully will continue to show - by snapping up tickets to sit outside, regardless of weather, to watch Shakespeare.  The first production of this season at the Delcourt is Shakespeare's As You Like It.  Even though I've lived in NY for the past 15 years of my life, I had not until recently seen a production of Shakespeare in the park.  Now I have.


One of the things that I find really interesting about the Shakespeare in the Park experience is the technical challenges posed specifically by the venue.  A similar experience could be said to be had at Shakespeare's Globe in London, but they don't do much in the way of Tech.  At The Globe they do set and costume design and that's about it.  In Central Park, The Public fully techs their productions.  Lights, sound, costumes, and set.  Everything.  Which poses some interesting problems.  For example, even on a clear night, the lighting design can be completely changed by humidity; what was once a tightly focused special becomes a wash across the sage.  I find this kind of thing super interesting because it's not like they can change their plot based on the weather.  They just have to deal with it which is so beyond my skill set that it confounds me.  


I got really lucky with regard to weather when I went to the park.  We couldn't have asked for a clearer, dryer night.  A little chilly, perhaps, but the show certainly took my mind off that.  I'll admit that going in I was not a huge fan of As You Like It.  I had previously seen a rather mediocre production from the Bridge Project, a group that aimed to unite the Old Vic and BAM by way of world tour and classic theater.  I wasn't pumped to see this particular show.  But once the music (Bluegrass, incidentally composed by Steve Martin) started playing as the audience finished filing in, I was hooked.  Daniel Sullivan, the director, chose to set this production on the 19th century American frontier and it totally worked.  When Shakespeare is taken out of it's time, I get a little leery of what the results might be.  I feel like if the setting does not make the story loose its sense, then it's fine.  But (for example) I once saw a production of The Merchant of Venice set in a prison and I spent the entire show thinking "Well how does that work in this setting?"  But the American frontier is quite conducive to the story told by As You Like It (for efficiency's sake I won't synopsize).  Lily Rabe plays an excellent Rosalind; she captures the changes of heart that Rosalind/Ganymede goes through with ease and realism.  Oliver Platt also plays an excellent Touchstone, the court jester Rosalind and Cecilia take with them into the woods to help them cope with their separation from court.  However, to me, the standout supporting character was Stephen Spinella as Jaques.  He plays the droll, sarcastic character perfectly.  He makes it seem like a perfectly logical conclusion for his character to [SPOILER ALERT] choose to join the bad Duke Frederick in his commitment to religious life.  This is coming from the guy who spent most of the play complaining about where he was.  But also from the guy who spoke for three hours off stage to a wounded dear.  What I'm saying is that Jaques is complicated and that Stephen Spinella plays him excellently.  It's totally worth it to see this nearly perfectly performed production of a play that only betrays its oddities in the hands of such a talented cast.