As You Like It

"As You Like It" presented by the Bridge Project at Brooklyn Academy of Music, January 26, 2010

(photo: Joan Marcus)

This is my first opportunity to see a production by the Bridge Project, a three-year partnership between the Old Vic Theatre in London, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Neal Street (Sam Mendes' film and theater production company).  Last season's offerings were Chekov's The Cherry Orchard in a new adaptation by Tom Stoppard and Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, both of which were pretty well-received (well enough received that I couldn't get a ticket!).  For their second season, it's a Shakespeare double-bill of As You Like It and The Tempest.

Tickets have been much more readily available for the first of this year's productions.  Telling the story of Orlando, searching for a reason to be in the world, coached by his love, Rosalind, hiding in front of him wearing trousers, Mr. Shakespeare asks for a substantial suspension of disbelief from his audience.  Certainly the writing is romantic and the story, at times, compelling.  Still, never having seen or read this play, I couldn't help but feel that this production, while pleasant, is unremarkable.  The actors are generally skilled in the language, with an exception here and there, and the staging is functional.  It was all very pretty.

There still seems something missing.  Where is the force that required this play to be produced with this cast in this theatre?  The story itself is typical Shakespeare at his operatic best, banished fathers, feuding brothers, greedy villains, masquerades and unfortunate love triangles. Juliet Rylance's Rosalind is lovely.  She really carries the evening, most of which is spent in a khaki suit and pork-pie hat as her alter-ego, Ganymede. Equally nice is Christian Camargo's Orlando, the youngest son forced into the forest after his older brother drives him from the family estate following their father's death.  As the middle son Jacques, Stephan Dillane strolls through the proceedings, content in his own discontentment.

Directed by Mr. Mendes, he keeps the action apace, but never seems to draw out any particular thoughts on the events of the plot.  The laughs are muted, resulting in a general sense of melancholy for most of the show.  Even the supposed joy of the ending is trampled a bit in the uncomfortable choreography stomped out by a willing if less than graceful cast.

Something Bloody This Way Comes

"MacBeth" at the Lyceum Theatre, April 1, 2008

(Photo: Manuel Harlan)

Transferring to Broadway after a sold-out run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last month, this British import has lodged at the Lyceum for a limited run.

With Patrick Stewart in the title role, it's no wonder the attraction to this unusual production. The plot is still a bit stupefying in operatic proportions, and Rupert Goold's placement in a quasi-Stalinist era kitchen doesn't really add much for me.

Mr. Stewart gets to play quite a bizarre range of moods, from fearful and hesitant before his ascent to the Scottish throne, to an almost Caligula-like impetuousness. In the end, he's so resigned to his fate and such a victim of bad luck that he can't even kill himself.

I found Kate Fleetwood's Lady MacBeth to be the more interesting interpretation. At her first entrance, she's young and glamorous, as well as a power hungry climber, pushing her husband well beyond his comfort and, likely, his sense of right and wrong to his first act of assassinating the current King Duncan (Byron Jennings). Almost as quickly as the deed is done, she begins her disintegration into insanity. By the time we get through Banquo's ghostly appearance, she's well on her way to her very effective mad scene.

Other standouts include Christopher Patrick Nolan's porter, Seyton. Greasy and profane, he oozes foreshadows of MacBeth's fall that is yet to come. Michael Feast's MacDuff smacked a bit too detached in early scenes, but rose to the moment when he learns the fate of his wife and children.

I did like the treatment of the witches first as nurses, then as housemaids. The rap version of "Double Double Toil and Trouble" felt a bit more comic than might have been intended.

The staging also seemed to take on a totally different feel toward the end of the first act (Banquo's ghostly appearance). What had been relatively straightforward staging and use of the space before suddenly felt much more conceptual and abstract. Duncan's murder happens off-stage, then suddenly we get a very stylized murder of Banquo on a train. I hadn't remembered from senior English class that his murder lined up so closely with that of Rasputin (poisoned, stabbed and shot - the only act missing was dropping him in the river.).

Despite the pre-show hype, discount tickets seem to be readily available. It's worth the visit.

Shakespeare in his "conceptual" phase

"Cymbeline" at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center, November 6, 2007

One of Shakespeare's last four plays, Cymbeline seems to be one where he's pulling some old tricks out of his hat, hoping to mix up something new. What we get is a convoluted opera-style plot of scheming queens (real queens, that is), magic sleeping potions, gender-bending, war, not-so-dead children, beheadings and a final scene with some of the most convenient wrap-ups not seen since the final "very special Blossom" all lined up with an actual reference to history.

If you really need a plot summary, go here.

As King Cymbeline, John Cullum is still struggling on occasion with lines, but manages to bluster his way through this poor man's Lear. Phylicia Rashad, his Queen, slithers about the stage, plotting the downfall of his daughter Imogen, (Martha Plimpton) and the advancement of her son Lord Cloten (Adam Dannheisser).

Ms. Plimpton is up to her usual outstanding performance in this role that requires her to call on characteristics of both Juliet and Olivia. As her maligned, deprived yet noble secret husband, Michael Cerveris spits about as much as any actor in a Shakespeare play since Kevin Kline. His Posthumus Leonatus is a bit sniveling, but does rise to the occasion in the plot contrivances of the final act.

Jonathan Cake carries the remaining weight of this production on his beautifully muscled shoulders as the Iago-like Iachimo, plotting to wrong Posthumus during his banishment in Italy by seducing his wife Imogen. Mr. Dannheisser delights as the thick-headed Cloten.

David Furr and Gregory Wooddell, as the Jethro and Lil' Abner missing princes are physically impressive (really physically impressive), but pretty much otherwise unintelligible. Also less successful is the talented John Pankow in the thankless role of Pisanio.

Direct Mark Lamos seems to have spent more time choreographing the traffic of his large cast than bringing meaningful performances from most of the roles.

Michael Yeargan's clever sets evoke a bit of an Elizabethan setting, nicely complimented by Brain MacDevitt's clever lighting. It's Jess Goldstein's sumptuous costumes that really make the visual impact of this production.