Toronto Sun, May 31, 2000
More ardour in Arden, please
By: John Coulbourn
Generally speaking, we like Shakespeare's As You Like It when we can love it.
It is, after all, a love story, or rather a series of them -- so many of 'em, in fact, that one could be forgiven for thinking that spring is in the air.
But in the Stratford Festival production of the Bard's classic romantic comedy, which opened last night on the stage of the Avon Theatre, director Jeannette Lambermont and designer Douglas Paraschuk conspire to bury any such misconception under an icy metallic cloud, further impeding their players with laboured visual allusions to the inexorable passage of time and other absudities, none of which has much to do with the facts of life and love in Arden Forest.
There is, in fact, a whole lot of living and loving going on in said forest, not to mention a bit of singing and dancing as well.
The reason for all the activity is this: After being expelled from his duchy by a greedy younger brother, played by Robert Benson, the Duke Senior (Jerry Franken) and his followers have taken up residence in Arden's glades, where they are soon joined by Orlando (Donald Carrier), the second son of the deceased Sir De Boys. Orlando has run afoul of both his elder brother and the usurper of Duke Senior's lands and has, quite wisely, chosen Arden as home.
But not before he has fallen madly in love with the old Duke's daughter, Rosalind, played by Lucy Peacock, who is soon forced to flee to the forest as well, disguised as the boy Ganymede. She is accompanied by her cousin Celia (Jacklyn Francis) and the Duke's fool, played by Brian Tree in such a fashion as to suggest that the words "fool" and "stooge" are interchangeable in Tree's vocabulary.
While the rest of the Duke's men hunt and sing the compositions of Keith Thomas, the principals keep occupied by falling madly and deeply in love: Orlando with Rosalind and vice-versa; Tree's fool and a local goatherd (Deborah Hay); a young shepherd (Michael Therriault) with a young shepherdess (Michelle Giroux), who is, in turn, smitten by Ganymede, who is really Rosalind in disguise; and finally, Celia with Orlando's brother (Jonathan Goad), after he's reconciled with his brother. Look for Stratford regulars like Juan Chioran, Joseph Shaw and Lewis Gordon amongst the forest denizens as well.
But sadly, under Lambermont's direction, don't look too closely, for love finally does not conquer all.
Though she starts out the production looking like a the loser in a gene pool run by the House of Windsor, Peacock eventually acquires grace and charm with her disguise and goes on to as much triumph as she can in the face of Carrier's classically remote performance.
Far more believable in such a state is Therriault's unrequited love or even Goad's instant infatuation with Francis.
Like the direction and design of the show, the principal love story is just a trifle too cold and, frankly, hot is what we like in As You Like It.