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Tavern finds music in ‘As You Like It’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “As You Like It.”
The Atlanta Shakespeare Company overcomes the difficulties of the long and daunting “As You Like It” with dollops of music and rapid-fire comic timing.
Shakespeare’s pastoral romp through Arden Forest, where characters exiled from court encounter a bewildering assortment of rustic types and find love, merriment and freedom, seems hopelessly dated one moment, astonishingly of our world the next.
Directed by Maurice Ralston at the New American Shakespeare Tavern, the production’s quick scene changes and multiple characters can confuse those not familiar with the play. No scenery or props convey Arden Forest, demanding a lot of the audience’s imagination. But those willing to remain lost in the wilderness are rewarded with an exciting musical finish in which all becomes clear.
The performance takes full advantage of one of Shakespeare’s most musical works. Along with beautiful performances of the five songs of Shakespeare from within the play are two contemporary numbers. Matthew Trautwein’s lovely tenor singing and lute playing give an appropriately Tudor flair to the bard’s lyrics.
“Lord, Don’t Forsake Me,” a contemporary spiritual sung by the entire cast to launch the performance, is stunningly apt for the play’s themes of exile and redemption. The original folk ballad “You You You You You” magnifies the joy and excitement of the closing celebration of love and marriage.
During the comedy of dualities and dichotomies, the characters essentially pair up in teams that deliver a series of rich vaudeville sketches —- like Elizabethan-era Abbotts and Costellos.
Rosalind, one of Shakespeare’s most complex and memorable characters, dominates the play, and Tavern stalwart Laura Cole rises to the role’s demands with a signature performance. Disguised with chopped hair as a boy of the forest, she glides across the stage, a Peter Pan who seems to fly without need of strings. Engaging in witty duets with her partner, Celia (Mary Russell), she’s a brassy boy one moment, a tender, romantically perplexed woman the next.
As her love interest, Orlando, David Weber also displays theatrical range, growing from whimpering, love-struck adolescent to emotionally mature adult under the disguised Rosalind’s tutelage.
Drew Reeves gives a sensitive, nuanced performance as the melancholy cynic Jaques, a prototype for succeeding Western literature, from Dostoevski’s Raskolnikov to J.D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield. Brooding, teasing, spying, challenging —- showing maddening flashes of sweetness —- Reeves fully explores the role, which anticipates Hamlet. Reeves’ delivery of the famous “All the world’s a stage” speech takes the performance into higher ranges of eloquence.
Resident madman Jeff McKerley rockets around the stage as the fool Touchstone with his usual over-the-top antics, jesting with the crowd and displaying consummate physical dexterity.
At times, the stunts grow tiresome, but when he’s on target, the laughs are riotous. Veronika Duerr as his love interest, Audrey, “a country wench,” is a perfect slapstick foil for him, her expressive face registering shades of dismay, anger, sympathy and joy.
Like Orlando defeating the burly Charles the wrestler, the cast scores a triumph over the challenges of Shakespeare’s bulky, outsize, flamboyant extravaganza.
THE VERDICT: An entertaining journey through Arden Forest.
THE 411: ”As You Like It.” 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 6:30 p.m. Sundays. Through July 3. $19.50-$24.50. Atlanta Shakespeare Company at the New American Shakespeare Tavern, 499 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-874-5299, www.shakespearetavern.com.
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