As You Like It
Local Arts Reviews
Reviewed by Robert Faires, Fri., April 12, 2002
As You Like It: Spring Break
Oscar Brockett Theatre, UTthrough April 14
Running Time: 2 hrs, 30 min
To say that things look black for fair Rosalind at the outset of this UT Department of Theatre & Dance production of As You Like It is no mere figure of speech. That's virtually the only color to be seen in the court where this Shakespearean heroine resides. Costume designer Marcy Rector has outfitted all its courtiers in ensembles of ink, vesture of tar: black cloaks, black slacks, black shoes, a black longcoat with ragged plastic over the collar and lapels, a black backless prom dress accented with studded black leather choker. Rosalind herself wears an ankle-length raven sheath with horizontal black straps encircling her torso from bust to waist.
It's a rather Stygian fashion statement and, combined with the goth posturing and cadaverous make-up of some of the lords, makes this dukedom appear to share a border with Tim Burton's neighborhood, a midnight-dark fantasy realm, part pop-culture fairy tale, part dystopian-future comic book. This court has that world's stylish bleakness, oppressive air, and extremes of good and evil, never more clearly than when Andrew Hutcheson's sinister Duke Frederick is on the scene; his bald pate erupts from hunched black shoulders like a boil from charred skin, and his glowering countenance radiates pure menace -- he's Lex Luthor spouting iambic pentameter. Given what looks in Frederick to be a potential for unrestrained evil, Rosalind is lucky to get off with banishment.
Once she makes it to the Forest of Arden, the environment shifts radically. Here, the shepherds and milkmaids are decked out in denims and cottons colored in russets, ochres, tans, and other earth tones -- call it Ralph Lauren's Rustic Collection -- and people's faces (stained with dirt rather than mascara), are smiling and alive. There's a sense of nature and open spaces and the world renewing itself. Even Rosalind's dad, Duke Senior, who is here in exile -- his title was stolen by his wicked brother, guess who -- is happy (and Andrew Hutcheson, in a neat double turn here, makes the good duke a figure as robust and cheery as his brother is curdled and villainous). The intellectual Jacques -- a prickly Lucas Howland -- is the only dark cloud in Arden's sunny skies.
Director Johanna McKeon has set up this As You Like It as a study in contrasts, two opposing worlds rendered in bold strokes. It's a strategy that could overwhelm the story, but she takes pains to keep the cast focused on the narrative, so the exaggerations of style and attitude serve the play, for the most part. Serving the play exceptionally well are the romantic leads. Benjamin Sterling's Orlando is a clenched fist, tense over the injustices of the corrupt court and even tense in love until Rosalind loosens him up. Keri Safran's Rosalind cuts an elegant if at times uncertain figure at court, but in Arden, disguised as Ganymede, she really finds her way. She speaks as if an open channel flows from her heart to her lips; honest feelings flow from her like spring waters down a mountain.
Spring, in fact, permeates both play and production. As the comedy's young lovers feel the fever of the season rising in their blood, so do the student actors, and they buzz about the stage with the energy of youth released into the world after a long winter. "Sweet lovers love the spring," they sing, and it seems as if the whole cast is smitten with the play. The show gives us little of the music in its poetry, but its good nature is such that you want to overlook it and any other deficiencies (that goes for excesses, too). After all, it captures the spirit of Arden in spring, the only pretty ring time. Hey nonny-no.