AS YOU LIKE IT: Peter Hall Company
Bath and Touring
As You Like It: William Shakespeare
The Peter Hall Company
Theatre Royal, Bath Until August 30, then tour (see below)
Runs 3 hrs. One interval
Review: Heather Neill 20 August 2003
Clarity of text, melancholy and comedy in this philosophical play.Sir Peter Hall's production allows the text of this most philosophical of Shakespeare's comedies to speak out loud and clear. His is an uncluttered approach, modernish in dress, embodied by a cast which perfectly illustrates the director's advice on verse-speaking as analysed in his recent book, Shakespeare's Advice to the Players. The result is clarity combined with swiftness, melancholy
with playful comedy.
The usurping Duke's court is minimally suggested, scarcely more than a frame for Joseph Millson's Orlando to defeat Charles the bully wrestler, for Rosalind and Celia to establish the closeness of their relationship before they seek freedom in the forest and for the principals to 'tangle eyes'. But this Orlando shows himself capable of passionate violence before he is put to the test; he expresses his anger against his brother's restrictions on his upbringing by pinning him furiously to the ground. Millson has the charm for a romantic hero but shows there is more to his Orlando than writing limp verse. Later he is a fit playfellow, and thus consort, for Rosalind - equally serious, equally quick-witted.
Rebecca Hall's willowy Rosalind towers over her cousin, a gently comic Celia played by Rebecca Callard. They make a nicely contrasting pair with Hall, in cap and baggy shirt, turning herself into a credible youth to woo her smitten admirer. She makes an intelligent, appealing Rosalind of considerable depth and thoughtfulness.
In the Forest of Arden the outlawed duke's court, headed by a bespectacled, benign David Yelland (who doubles as his cruel but soon-to-be reformed usurping brother) experiences nature at first hand. Spring and summer warm the courtiers in John Gunter's atmospheric greenwood as love takes hold.
The romance is all there, but there is room for a tinge of cynicism too. Jaques' position is not as far removed from the centre of the play is it would be in a more rumbustuous production. The curtain falls at the interval on the ringing words: 'Most friendship is faining, most loving mere folly'. Rosalind's assertion that love is merely a madness should not be forgotten by the assorted (sometimes ill-sorted) couples at the play's end.
Cast:
Orlando: Joseph Millson
Adam: Eric Sykes
Oliver: Glenn Carter
Dennis: David Birkin
Charles: James Crossley
Celia: Rebecca Callard
Rosalind: Rebecca Hall
Touchstone: Michael Siberry
Le Beau: Peter Gordon
Frederick: David Yelland
Banished duke: David Yelland
Amiens: Glenn Carter
Jaques: Philip Voss
Corin: Peter Gordon
Silvius: David Birkin
Audrey: Amanda Symonds
Sir Oliver Mar-Text: Eric Sykes
Phoebe: Natalie Walter
William: James Crossley
Jaques, second son of Sir Rowland: Freddie Stevenson
Director: Peter Hall
Designer: John Gunter
Lighting designer: Peter Mumford
Composer: Mick Sands
Sound designer: Gregory Clarke
Fight director: Terry King
2003-08-21 10:05:00