AS YOU LIKE IT -- Great River Shakespeare Festival

script: William Shakespeare
director: Paul Barnes
cast: Andrew Carlson, Carla Noack, Chris Mixon, Kern McFadden, Kim Martin-Cotten, Christopher Gerson, Tarah Flanagan, David Graham Jones, Laura Coover, Zachary Fine, Jonathan Gillard Daly, Doug Scholz-Carlson, Art Moss, Brian David Frederick, Jacques Roy
set design: Scott C. Neal
costume design: Rosemary Ingham
light design: Darren McCroom
sound design: Katharine Horowitz
composer: Daniel Kallman


Shakespeare's gender-bending, word-play comedy.



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I think that Great River Shakespeare Festival does the comedies exceedingly well. The plot and subplots, text and context and subtext are all very clear.

If there is a failing here at all, it is that this is not one of Shakespeare's better works. However, I have to admit that it has always been among my favorites -- I love the intelligent word play, the morose Jacques, the terrible love poems, the off-kilter gender-switching Rosalind, and the fact that Shakespeare even dared to have a woman fall in love with the woman (as a man). Oh what fun!

Noack as Rosalind and Carlson as Orlando didn't quite have the spark that is really necessary to make a romantic comedy click. Where there should have been fireworks in theirs eyes at their initial meeting, I instead saw actors pretending to like each other. This Rosalind seemed to take a more maternal interest in her Orlando, rather than a young woman's sudden flight into love.

Chris Gerson was brilliant as both Duke Frederick (giving us chills at his outburst toward his niece Rosalind and daughter Celia) and as William (where he made us laugh at William's simple earnestness).

The set and costumes worked well and there really wasn't a bad performance in the lot.

An exquisite night at the theatre.