- all things go, all things go -

I've been surrounded by theatre as of late, and wanting to write about it, but having the time to set down fingers to keyboard seems harder to do these days!

As You Like It is one of the easier Shakespearean plays to get into, and firmly upholds the old chestnut that females in classic fiction/drama must end up mad, dead, or married. Being a comedy, they all find the last of these fates but with very different results.

I felt that while the WWII-era French-Resistance setting had some good points - the shoes! the set, with a nice "Winged Victory" reference, even if it took half of the first act to understand why they went with an "ugly tree"... there were problematic elements. The wartime songs, while providing context, were a director's choice that felt out of place; distancing. They were a good way to segue scenes, but I felt like the singing went on too long - and like I should have brushed up on my French!

And am I the ony one alive that enjoyed but is tiring of "contemporary/ Spacetrooper /West LA/gothic/high school" Shakespeare? Damns, but my kingdom for a man in a toga. Seriously!

Setting issues aside, the show went really well - the laughs from the house were awesome when I watched it last week from my perch in the moat. Touchstone and Audrey were consummate entertainers; the Id of the piece and reveling in every minute, from running around the stage on a vintage bicycle to quipping with a wit that felt contemporary despite its vintage penning, to causing flowers to grow spontaneously (haha, yes. We had to guard the stage from curious bypassers at the end of the show!) They were flirts and follies and maybe their union will only last two weeks, as Hymen predicts at the show's conclusion, but anyone in the audience could guess that those two weeks would be FUN.

Celia and Oliver - well, as the love-at-first-sight couple, they don't have a lot to work with. But I liked Celia; I found her more believable than Rosalind, although both characters seemed so young. (Which they are, to be fair; this is a damn-kids-off-my-lawn~! moment.)

Orlando was well-played; he makes, say, Chuck Bartowski look smooth, but could switch from bumbling and speechless (there's a scene in the first act when he cannot answer Rosalind with anything resembling words that approaches both priceless and well-locked-away memories from middle school) to opinionated and steely.

But the thought that sprouted while watching As You Like It, grew while gawking over the amazing set and mental/physical brilliance of Drowning Girls (which has moved on, after its 99th performance on Sunday; I wish I could have seen it sooner so as to have recommended it) and blossomed as I listened to the brassy-sweet overture of Beauty and the Beast this evening on my seat outside the theatre, after having taken the tickets and counted the stubs, is how much these plays all play on (and with!) the nature of love.

Love, and keeping up appearances.

Rosalind is one of Shakespeare's most beloved heroines, and for good reason - she's smart, resourceful, funny, thoughtful, playful, and at least in the public eye, ahead of her time. (I'm, personally, Team Beatrice, and never mind what I said about contemporary settings because I blame Emma Thompson.)

After her banishment, she takes on a man's guise to protect herself and her cousin - and, while still guised, convinces also-banished Orlando to woo her as herself, although she doesn't look it. Much ado has been made over the fact that they're one of the few Shakespearean couples to have onstage relationship building, and it's witty and fun and, though it's mostly business, even pretending at affairs of the heart gets problematic and the lines between Rosalind and Ganymede blur as the show progresses.

It's interesting to watch who is fooled by her facade; the shepherdess Phebe (played with an almost animalistic alacrity) falls for "Ganymede", where Orlando's older and suddenly repenting brother Oliver sees right through to the girl behind the trousers and conveniently large hat. Orlando himself is somewhere in the middle. (This is the point at which I wish I'd kept up with my literary theory, but it's midnight on a weekday, so sparing all concerned, the play says nothing so much as it says that love is never the same twice.)

Love at first sight can work, but it can also be more surprise than you can handle when you dig past the first layer - whether it is a discovery of psychosis (as it is in Drowning Girls) or that the man of your dreams is not so much a man after all. (Or, for that matter, if we're talking Beauty, a Beast. (Oh, Rejean Cournoyer. ♥)


On a completely different note, if you ever have the chance, go see DG. It's a fast-paced, brilliantly choreographed piece of theatre with vintage bloomers and a haunting voice... and a splash zone. I kid you not. The front row of the Rice likely got more than they bargained for! The three actresses have organic synchronicity as they whisper and sing about the man (the same man) who looked perfect on the surface but who seduced, then married, then insured, then murdered them. It could be trite; it could be preachy; it could be entirely tragic, with this source material (which I believe has grains of, if not is based in truth) but there's more than enough dry, dark humour to keep the script from being weighted down like the vintage wedding dresses that the Girls adorn midway through the play. The physicality of the play also helps - the choreography/blocking/combination thereof is an effective mix of vaudeville and almost Gothic imagery, with a frisson of sensuality and otherworldliness. To this day, I'm not certain how they weren't sliding all over the stage, between the running and the dancing and the hopping-on-one-foot-to-get-into-a-stocking, on a stage covered in water! But that's all part of the magic.

For now, though, I've got some sleep to get to. Take care, and stay warm! (I'm trying to forget the blizzard outside my window; it's MAY, Mother Nature!)

♥ music of the moment: chicago
(where was I three years ago when this was being released, and why wasn't I aware it was awesome?)