Reviews 2005
Reviews 2005
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by William Shakespeare, directed by Antoni Cimolino
Stratford Festival, Festival Theatre, Stratford
June 4-October 30, 2005
“Not Much”
Stratford’s current production of “As You Like It” is an example of the mistakes that happen when a director, in this case Stratford’s Executive Director Antoni Cimolino, has only superficial understanding of the play. Setting the action in the 1960s is a good idea, but neither Cimolino nor his design team have implemented it accurately or with any point. Cimolino has paid so little attention to exploring the play’s characters that the second half of one of Shakespeare’s liveliest comedies becomes downright tedious.
We know things are amiss in the first scenes at court. Designer Santo Loquasto has Duke Frederick and the senior men wear military outfits. Thus, we assume, the Sixties setting will pit the Establishment as represented by Duke Frederick against the hippies as represented by his brother Duke Senior exiled in the forest of Arden. But then, why do Duke Frederick’s courtiers sport Beatles haircuts, Nehru jackets, go-go boots, miniskirts and op-art prints? These are pop counterculture clothes not clothes of the Establishment. Did Loquasto not do his research to find what the Establishment wore? Where are the short haircuts with narrow-lapel suits and narrow ties for the men, matching pastel jacket-skirt combinations and pillbox hats for the women? Loquasto’s design faux pas thus undermines the whole intent of the Sixties setting. He even has Duke Frederick rise from his bath to wear an Indian print caftan. A military person in the Sixties wear a caftan--I don’t think so.
The set itself is peculiar. Both Frederick’s court and the Forest of Arden seem to be located in the ladder section of Canadian Tire. Aluminum ladders of varying heights represent both places, again minimizing, not strengthening the difference between the repressive court and the liberating forest. At least, wooden ladders could have been the forest and mental ones the court, but not here. The one distinguishing mark of the forest are a series of open transparent plastic umbrellas suspended from the ceiling and lowered when Rosalind and friends enter the forest. There are two problems. First, once lowered they are not retracted again for subsequent court scenes. Worse, the umbrellas are in the way of the majority of the stage lights so that from then on it is almost impossible for lighting designer Steven Hawkins to achieve a clear focus on the stage. It’s the responsibility of the director to note such problems and correct them. The fact that such major design problems are present after opening suggests that Cimolino was asleep at the wheel.
The same is true of the much-touted music by the Barenaked Ladies commissioned for the production. There is nothing wrong with the music itself. It’s pleasant but unmemorable and certainly not worth the fuss the Festival has made over it. Everything that could vaguely be considered a song has been made into one. Since many of these are very short, the Barenaked Ladies have added multiple repeats to stretch them out. Cimolino, having commissioned the music, is obviously loath to cut any of it. As a result, the production is padded to a length of three hours and effective pacing of the action sacrificed for the sake of the frequently unnecessary musical numbers.
If Cimolino drew especially good performances from the cast this might be some consolation. But he has not. Some, in fact, make no sense. He has decided that Rosalind’s best friend Celia should be a goofy, comic sidekick. Thus, Sophie Goulet, plays a klutz dressed in a frumpy granny-gown, delivers her lines in an annoying nasal voice and mugs incessantly. Yet, Celia is as much a duke’s daughter as Rosalind and the text doesn’t support this demeaning portrayal. Meanwhile, Cimolino has Graham Abbey give us the least melancholy Jacques I’ve ever seen. Dressed as an army deserter, Abbey’s furtively grinning Jacques seems a bit odd in the head, but never displays the intellect or all-pervading cynicism that his words imply, rendering his departure at the end of the action inconsequential. While Brian Tree’s well-spoken Corin and Jean-Michel Legal’s earnest Silvius are presented as modern-day sheep farmers, Laura Condlln’s farm girl Audrey doesn’t have a speck of dirt on her and her unseemly behaviour is an afterthought. Further confusing us as to where or what this Forest of Arden is, Adrienne Gould’s Phoebe is dressed like trailer trash, somehow walking about the woods in high heels.
Potentially some good performances are also undermined by lack of direction. Sara Topham is a fine Rosalind and Dion Johnstone is an ardent Orlando, but is isn’t a jot of chemistry between them. Cimolino makes absolutely nothing of Rosalind’s dilemma of pretending to be a boy while teaching Orlando to woo. Sean Arbuckle blusters as Oliver de Boys and Stephen Russell doesn’t conjure up much evil as Duke Frederick. Bernard Hopkins is funny as a blissed-out Sir Oliver Martext, but his costume as a maharishi may strike you as too gimmicky.
It falls to Dan Chameroy as Amiens to lead the majority of songs and he certainly presents them with more poise than the rest of the cast. William Needles as the aged Adam is the only one in the play who evokes any real emotion. While Stephen Ouimette’s Touchstone consistently finds humour in the role of a courtier thrust into a rustic life.
Cimolino’s misunderstanding the characters or forcing them into roles unsupported by the text, drives the entire second half of the play, which consists entirely of a series of conversations about love, into tedium. He’s given us no insight into the characters’ personal dilemmas, so how can we care about them? If Stratford wants to attract a more youthful audience, gimmicks like a Barenaked Ladies’ songs and a Sixties setting, especially when as ill-conceived as here, won’t do it. Real insight into the text that makes us care about the characters will.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Sara Topham and Dion Johnstone.
2005-07-14
As You Like It