There’s something for everyone to not only like but love in Florida State University/Asolo Conservatory’s production of As You Like It. Set mainly in a magical Arden, a forest of colorful aerial silk trees, story themes blend in a three-ring circus. The political situation of the ducal court gets tamed; peasants and old servants are applauded; love swings to its proper targets. Winter changes to spring, and romance and righteousness will reign in all the land.
Orlando, the hero, escapes from being kept down by his brother Oliver’s jealousy but falls in mutual love at first sight with Rosalind before going off to Arden. There the deposed Duke Senior heads an ideal “government” with his band of freemen and a melancholy Jacques, who looks at the crueler side of life in nature. When Rosalind is banished by Celia’s father, who deposed hers, they flee with the fool Touchstone. Rosalind disguises herself as a young man, Ganymede, accompanying Celia as Aliena, and they all end up in Arden, where gender-bent Rosalind covertly and ironically teaches Orlando how to woo.
The entwined love stories involve Rosalind and Orlando and eventually Celia, also falling in love at first sight with a changed Oliver; Touchstone and a goatherd Audrey, a “poor thing” but his own; landowner Silvius, lovesick for Phoebe who, for a while, covets Rosalind in disguise. They’re a mix of aristocrats and clownish commoners with costumes outrageously motley.
Kelsey Petersen handles the lines of Shakespeare’s longest woman’s role (or second-longest if, like some scholars, one doesn’t count her Epilogue) with aplomb and a painted-on mustache that looks as if it would tickle. Josh James matches her in earnestness of love and rightly stresses Orlando’s native intelligence in all matters except seeing through Ganymede’s disguise. Ally Farzetta’s wonderful Celia lets love shine through her eyes both for Rosalind and a reformed Oliver. A highlight is her rap version of a piece of Orlando’s doggerel romantic verse.
The Asolo students here handle Shakespearean poetry better than any I’ve heard before in Conservatory shows. Prose, too. Tom Hartley proves a master of both as a fast-talking, always positive Touchstone. Interaction between him and Jordan Sobel’s often-moaning Silvius makes for lively contrast.
As a feminized courtier LeBeau, Lisa Woods’ stage French can’t always be understood, but she finds the right voice as Audrey. There are judicious cuts of now-obscure lines and the addition of a few fun modern phrases.
If there is a disappointment, it’s Chris Alexey Diaz’ interpretation of Jacques. He’s melancholy, true, but always appears at the side of the action. His famous “7 Ages” speech breaks each line into a caesural pause and is then followed by a run-on to the next line. Since Diaz seems confident enough, perhaps it is the directorial dictate that’s wanting. If so, too bad, because Jonathan Epstein’s direction is otherwise delightfully fresh and seems full of concern for both his actors and audience.
There are trusty men, both old (Adam, Orlando’s shuffling servant, and Corin, a Southern-accented shepherd) and younger (servants of Duke Frederick in his palace as well as of Duke in Arden). This means a lot of doubling, and it’s well done.
Costumes (including a rather strange lot of gray mechanics’ overalls in the palace) help establish identities, as do such objects as handlebar mustaches (for wrestlers) and a shepherd’s crook.
As You Like It has more music than any other Shakespearean play, well-sung, usually solo, and performed on guitar by Kevin Barber. Without singing, he’s nonetheless done up also as a funny Elvis-like Minister Martex. Evan Reynolds White and Kim Stephenson dance so blithely as deer that her later killing may be short but not on sorrow. She also charms doing aerial splits, even upside-down, as Phoebe. Hyman doesn’t appear at the end, but the traditional dance of comedy is there. It’s around a maypole, concocted on the spot, of twisted silk “trees” and sprightly as one would wish. That ducal palace promises to be one swinging spot.
