Theatre in Review: As You Like It (The Bridge Project at Brooklyn Academy of Music)

	Photo: Joan Marcus

Leaving Sam Mendes' production the other night, I realized I had never before seen As You Like It taken seriously.

It was a shock, to be sure, because, over the years, I've had my fill of William Shakespeare's comedy. At times I've felt that if I had to endure one more boisterous romp through the Forest of Arden, I'd do something desperate with a carving knife. It's because, in most productions, the director hustles the audience through the play's dark early scenes, preferring to concentrate on the mistaken-identity mix-ups and cross-dressing comedy of the second half. It's a perilous decision that can result in an evening of coy and self-congratulatory antics. Shakespeare is many things, but he is never, ever cute.

Thank heaven that Mendes understands this; he gives full weight to the early scenes set in a dukedom turned dictatorship. It's a dark, cold, capricious place where brothers betray each other, children are separated from their parents, and exile is an omnipresent possibility. (In a nod to recent political realities, the usurping Duke Frederick isn't above practicing a little waterboarding when seeking information about a rival's fate.)

It's also a place where treachery festers in every corner. Orlando, the youngest son of an aristocratic family, is cruelly abused, treated worse than a servant, while his brother Oliver holds sleek cocktail parties. Mendes has Oliver throw a drink in Orlando's face, leading to fisticuffs between them. Soon Oliver is arranging to have his brother killed during a wrestling match at court. At the same time, Rosalind, the daughter of Frederick's exiled brother, Duke Senior, has a precarious position as the companion to her cousin Celia; yet, having done nothing at all, Rosalind becomes the object of Frederick's jealous rage and is forced to flee for her life, with Celia in tow.

When the characters converge on the Forest of Arden, you're in for another shock. It's not the usual leafy glade out of an Errol Flynn movie; instead, it is rendered by the set designer, Tom Piper, as a winter garden devoid of greenery and dusted with snow. When we first see them, Duke Senior and his fellows in exile are dining al fresco, bundled up in woolens; they look like anti-fascist partisans in a World War II film.

In these surroundings, the first half's relatively few comic moments stand out; wit rears its head in the same way that little green shoots appear in a late winter landscape. Some will call this approach pretentious, but, to my mind, it's exactly the way to go. By making sure that we care very much about the characters and their plights, Mendes lays the groundwork for laughter in the second half, when spring arrives, bringing with it all sorts of romantic complications, along with the possibility of forgiveness and renewal.

And, by making us so glad to escape the chilly intrigues at court, Mendes also makes us more than willing to accept the play's happy confluence of confused lovers. Devices that often seem more than a little arch -- Orlando's moonstruck plan to cover every tree with paeans to Rosalind; Rosalind's attempt, in male disguise, to talk Orlando out of love; and her efforts to fend off the attentions of Phoebe, the country girl who (she thinks) knows Mr. Right when she sees him -- suddenly seem as logical as life itself. As these plots, and others, unravel, as poseurs are unmasked, and as lovers are reconciled, a finale that often seemed the act of a playwright briskly wrapping up loose plot ends is transformed into the comic spectacle of lovestruck fools discovering their own true natures.

If it's the director's vision that carries the day, he is greatly assisted by a fine, if uneven, company. This is a superb showcase for Juliet Rylance, whose Rosalind is as enchanting as any I've seen -- an intelligent, well-bred young lady who faces the world around her with a faint look of astonishment and a quiet, but devastating, undertone of irony. She's especially endearing in the second half as, caught in a variety of impersonations and deceptions and feeling her poise slipping away, she takes desperate action to set things right. She's well-matched with Christian Camargo's handsome and serious-to-a-fault Orlando. From their first meeting you very much want these two to get together.

The production's other showpiece performance is by Stephen Dillane, whose melancholy Jacques is a thing of extraordinary delicacy and intellect. This difficult character can become the forest's resident boor if not played carefully, but, in the actor's hands, Jacques is a man doomed to live forever on the outside of things; his recitation of the "seven ages of man" speech -- so quiet, so thoughtful, and so relentless in its conclusions -- results in an astonished silence from the audience. Dillane gives the character an appealing undertone of loneliness, too, as evidenced by his fascination with Touchstone, the clown, whose red, bulbous nose he carries around like a talisman. Even when aiming for -- and getting -- laughs with his wittily on-target spoof of Bob Dylan's vocal delivery, the joke seems part and parcel of his complex, slippery personality.

Other standouts include Alvin Epstein, as Adam, Orlando's faithful elderly servant; Thomas Sadoski, as Touchstone, who finds himself embroiled in a lusty liaison with the country girl Audrey (Jenni Barber); Michael Thomas, both villainous and a font of wisdom, respectively, as the two Dukes; and Aaron Krohn, as Silvius, the shepherd who pines none too gracefully for Phoebe. Ron Cephas Jones and Jonathan Lincoln Fried are solid in smaller roles.

It must be said, however, that, in assembling his company this year, Mendes has not chosen his players quite so carefully as before. The point of The Bridge Project is to show that American and British actors can be blended into a seamless ensemble -- and, by and large, he proves that proposition. However, the cast of As You Like It has a couple of weak links. One is Michelle Beck, who captures Celia's deadpan, voice-of reason qualities, but who also struggles with the verse. As Phoebe, Ashlie Atkinson, an effective comic actress in other circumstances, never seems at home in the world of iambic pentameter; as a result, her pursuit of Rosalind is never as amusing it should be.

Even so, the production remains constantly beguiling. Piper's scenery creates several compelling worlds; the transitions between the court, defined by a towering wall, and the forest are simply, yet brilliantly, achieved, as is the forest's transition from a chilly winter landscape to a gorgeously grassy meadow. Paul Pyant's lighting reshapes the stage with sinister angular strokes, then floods it with a warmly colorful atmosphere. Catherine Zuber's costumes range from contemporary couture in the court scenes to a mix of period and styles for the forest. The sound, by Simon Baker for Autograph, provides fine reinforcement for Mark Bennett's introspective incidental music, as well such ambient forest sounds as loons and birdsong.

Most of all, however, this is a production that finds a universe of feelings in a text that is too often pigeonholed as a screwball comedy. It may be the finest production from The Bridge Project yet, and that's high praise indeed.--David Barbour