The Arden Forest is where you go when the city won’t hold you back. When the law is unfair, when the customs are restrictive, when the institutions squeeze and narrow you, in the end this is the space to breathe and exist. Of course, Manhattan razed its forests long ago. (A lone treetop, in Inwood Hill Park, still remains.) But on a summer night, in Central Park, glance a little and you can picture a forest here – a refuge. , bounty, hiding place.
You won’t have to squint when”As you like“A shimmering Shakespeare adaptation at the Delacorte Theatre, courtesy of Public Works. Adapted by Laurie Woolerydirector and singer-songwriter Shaina Taub, who provides music and lyrics, this pleasant, purposeful show delivers the typical pleasures of a Shakespearean comedy – adventure, disguise, multiple marriages, pentameter over days. And, in just 90 minutes, the film brought together dozens of actors and hundreds of spectators as citizens of the same happy community.
Taub and Woolery’s adaptation retains the original’s outline, while shortening and tightening the entanglements, creating space for the songs. Rosalind (Rebecca Naomi Jones), the daughter of the exiled Duke of Senior (Darius De Haas), instantly falls in love with Orlando (Ato Blankson-Wood), the young son of a dead nobleman. Threatened by the current Duke (Eric Pierre), they flee with friends and servants to the Forest of Arden, where Duke Senior has established an alternative, more egalitarian court.
Taub cast himself as Jacques, the emotional philosopher who opens the show with a soft ballad, “All the World’s a Stage”, singing: “All the world is a stage / And everybody’s in the show / Nobody is a professional.”
These lyrics do a lot of work, the work goes beyond words. “As You Like It” is a product of Public construction, a division of the Public Theater in partnership with community groups. So the song is like a pre-emptive apology, an amateur admission. However, these lines also serve as an invitation, an impulse to imagine you are part of the program, to participate in its creation. A big question? Probably. On a mellow evening, with the quiet city and bright lights, you won’t feel the same way. And for those who tremble and tremble at the thought of audience participation, take a breath. You don’t even have to sing along, though you might want to.
I first watched “As You Like It” in a short run at the Delacorte Theater in the summer of 2017, after the travel ban was instituted, but before the Trump administration’s separation of families policy was widely adopted. Then all scrolling is dead; Opening the morning newspaper is to start a new day with some horror. Things could – and did – get worse. I remember going through the performance, deeply and with some tears, as a temporary respite.
To review it now, when disaster seems less immediate, is to relax in the quick pleasures of work. Jones, an actress with a voice sharp and sweet, like a baking knife on a birthday cake, is a dynamic Rosalind. And if you adore Blankson-Wood in “Play Slave, “You’ll enjoy his playful twist here, as in the excellent R&B issue,” Will U Be My Bride. But the success of the show is not due to any individual performers more than to its generosity and sociability overall. Taub’s lyrics are simple, but writing the lines feels effortless. Same for Sonya TayehThe fluid choreography was choreographed by Billy Griffin and workable for all types of body types, and Woolery’s ingenious use of theatrical space.
The stage itself has an oddly flimsy set, by Myung Hee Cho, a turntable dotted with trees that don’t look like trees at all. But Emilio Sosa’s outfit and Isabella Byrd’s lights provide fun splashes of color. James Ortiz deer puppet design; if they lack the feeling of the cow he designed Because current revival of “Into the Woods,” you can’t have everything. The revival of “Into the Woods” was directed by Lear deBessonet, who inaugurated the Public Works, which Woolery currently leads. Then the small wonder, but all the same wonder, that the two most fun shows in New York right now, the two most entwined with questions of community and duty and care, this joint pregnancy.
If “As You Like It” succeeds as an entertainer – and it flows, it’s enough to make you wonder if Shakespeare in the Park should stick with comedies and musicals and maybe romance at times. – then it is clear and answers the concerns of many people. There is a nagging fear in American politics that to give freedom is to invite anarchy. “As You Like It” offers another possibility. There are no rules in the Arden Forest. But instead of falling into riots, its inhabitants practice supporting each other. They lived in harmony, figuratively and – as De Haas darted back and forth – literally.
This confirms Woolery and Taub’s adaptation as a kind of thought experiment: What if a community were free to define its own principles and best practices? Because “As You Like It” features members of partner organizations – Family Workers, Children’s Aid and Military Assistance Foundation, among them – the show is also proof. about concept. Of course, there is hierarchy here. The direction is for Woolery alone and Equity card holders play a major role. (Lie on Taub’s lyrics, someone’s a professional.)
But if theater is truly welcoming and accessible to all, this is what it can represent – a stage bursting with performers of diverse ages, races, and traditions. patterns, habits and circumstances, audiences are distributed over a similar range. “As You Like It” offers the rarity – a theater in New York that looks like the city itself and like a promise of what the city, at its best, can be.
It was a feat. And what a gift. Then just go. Wait in line and walk to the theater through the trees. Stayed here for a while.
As you like
Through September 11 at the Delacorte Theater, Manhattan; publictheater.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes.
