As You Like It

At Bard on the Beach until September 22, 2018
Tickets from $24 at 604-739-0559 or bardonthebeach.org

Posted June 23, 2018

Thistledown has nothing on this Bard on the Beach production of As You Like It; it is like a lead balloon compared to director Daryl Cloran’s take on this Shakespeare classic. I fear it may become airborne, drift on the wings of the Beatles’ songs through the openings of the Mainstage tent and float across the Strait to the Gulf Islands where any back-to-the-landers that are still there will embrace it whole-heartedly. Peace and love, man.

Why put As You Like It in a mashup with the Beatles? Love. All you need is. Can you dig it?

The Bard version still follows the ridiculous, tangled storyline: two estranged Dukes – one good, one bad; a young woman (Rosalind) who gets banished from the court by the bad Duke; her ‘bestie’ Celia who decides to go into exile with her; various lovers; a melancholic (Jaques, who claims, “I can suck melancholy out of a song like a weasel sucks eggs”); a clown (Touchstone). It’s all there. Not the entire uncut script, but the story.

There are more than twenty Beatles songs, interjected at points so perfectly hilarious that on opening night the Mainstage roof must have been straining against its moorings with all that laughter rising up.

Truly, when Ben Carlson, as Jaques, breaks into “I Am The Walrus”, tears of laughter began to flow down this old hippie’s face. “Goo-goo g’joob/Goo-goo g’joob”. Jaques tells us it’s “a Greek invocation to call fools into a circle”. Huh.

And, oh, did I mention there’s wrestling? Shakespeare puts Charles (Austin Eckert), the duke’s champion wrestler, into the ring with Orlando (Nadeem Phillip) where inexperienced Orlando is supposed to get killed. Amazingly, Orlando wins. Director Cloran opens the play in an All-Star Wrestling ring: on the ropes, over the ropes, under and through the ropes. An aluminum garbage can plays a significant role. Eye contact is made mid-match between Orlando and Rosalind (Lindsey Angell) and suddenly Touchstone (Kayvon Khoshkam) breaks into, “She Loves You/Yeah, yeah, yeah.” In spite of spectacular and spectacularly funny fight choreography by Jonathan Hawley Purvis, there will be bruises. Oh, yeah.

 

Costume designer Carmen Alatorre has a field day and probably spent some time in Value Village for this one: flared pants and pedal pushers, beads and headbands, OshKosh B’gosh-style overalls and fringed, suede vests, cowboy boots and sandals. Didn’t we think we were just so darned cool?

Talent? OMG, the stage is overrun with it. Where to start? Khoshkam as Touchstone creates a comedic throughline that never quits. He even gets a laugh every time he pronounces “Oh!-ka-NOGGIN”, the ‘forest’ where the lovers find each other. When his love interest, the lusty Audrey (Emma Slipp), declares “I’m no slut” but then massages a long cucumber pulled from her picnic basket, Khoshkam’s “HELL-o” is insanely funny. I’d go as far as to say Khoshkam steals this show right out from underneath everyone.

As Jaques, Ben Carlson delivers the lines, “All the world’s a stage . . . His acts being seven stages” he says them as probably no other actor in four hundred years of the play’s history has ever said them. It’s a geriatric gem to charm those of us who were actually around when the Beatles took over the airwaves.

Angell and Harveen Sandhu are a giddy pair of girls (Rosalind and Celia); and as Ganymede (Rosalind disguised as a man), Angell is a sometimes simpering, stammering, lovestruck fool around Orlando. Andrew Wheeler is the growly, aged and devoted Adam, servant to Orlando; and Wheeler actually plays the trombone. Good grief, is there no end to what Wheeler can do? Scott Bellis is both Duke Frederick and the duke’s brother; in a blond wig and flowing robes, he’s as hip as it ever got.

The attention to small physical business is unparalleled . No one is standing around doing nothing nor is anyone so busy it’s a distraction. Timing – especially Khoshkam’s and Carlson’s – is spot on and often unbelievably funny. Slipp giggles with such sexy glee, you just have to laugh. Even Craig Erickson, as Oliver (Orlando’s nasty brother), gives a chortling, “Heeheehee” when he discovers to his dismay, he has fallen in love.

They all sing! They all dance! There’s a band including Jeff Gladstone who plays a mean, mean electric guitar.

I finally lost it. When the incomparable Ben Elliott (as the hapless, lovelorn shepherd Silvius) has his scene with Phoebe (Luisa Jojic) in which she persuades him to woo Ganymede (the disguised Rosalind) on her behalf, the physical business is just off the wall, gut-bustingly funny. I am a bit embarrassed about how much I laughed but, heck, the guy beside me sang along through the whole show. It’s pretty much impossible not to get interactive if you’re of a certain vintage.

Having now raised your expectations sky-high, let me bring it down a tiny notch: sometime before intermission I began to feel another song was about to come along. It became a little formulaic in that respect. One or two songs could be eliminated – but it would be very hard to say which one or two. It’s definitely not for purists who prefer their Shakespeare straight up. And, uh, let’s see. Anything else?

Nope.

People who think they hate Shakespeare will love it. There’s popcorn and wine and beer and ice-cream bars. Could anything be better?

Take a page from the Beatles’ songbook: “Little darling[s], it’s been a long cold lonely winter” but “Here comes the sun/Here comes the sun/And I say/ It’s all right.”

This As You Like It is more than all right. It’s a total hoot.