As You Like It - Third Citizen Theatre Company
As You Like It – Third Citizen Theatre Company
Review by James Wilkinson
As You Like It is produced by Third Citizen Theatre Company. Written by William Shakespeare. Directed by Peter Sampieri. Staring Emily Grove, Jay Connolly, Jillian Blevins, Michael J. Blunt, Alex Deroo, Xander Viera, Morgan Flynn, Paul Scharf, Brian Dion and Ashley Skeffington.
Third Citizen Theatre Company’s production of As You Like It restores the soul. God, I loved it. Across the North Shore, theatre companies are scrambling to try and program seasons that take into account the fact that their audiences have been away for eighteen months and the political upheavals that have happened during that time. As we go back to the theater, we’re likely to get a lot of false starts and missteps, (and, I suspect, a great number of critics using the line “this is the show we need right now,” a phrase I would like to formally go on the record and call meaningless.), but I suspect that it’s in the many pop-up Shakespeare-in-the-park productions that have happened this summer, like this one, where we’ll get our first reminder of why we go to the theater at all. It’s one of the reasons I was so keen to see Apollinaire Theatre’s outdoor production of Romeo and Juliet down in Chelsea and so disappointed when I couldn’t fit it into my schedule. Maybe it’s for the best. We might still be a bit too tender for a story that’s destined to barrel towards tragedy. Much better to stick with Third Citizen’s As You Like It where we get to barrel towards joy.
You risk overpraising a show like As You Like It and building up audience expectation to a point that the actual production can’t reach. It’s not that the piece helmed by director Peter Sampieri does anything particularly new, it’s that what it does do, it does so well. Performed outdoors at the Salem Willows Band Shell, Sampieri gives the production a staging that’s always shifting, always giving the eye something to absorb in a way that works with Shakespeare’s flowery language rather than against it. We’re not drowning in excess. It’s a cliché at this point to call a Shakespeare production ‘stripped down’ or ‘done as Shakespeare intended it.’ It’s become so normalized to see a Shakespeare play where each member of the production team has stuffed every idea they can think of with up its backside, that when a critic comes to a version that actually puts its focus on the characters, it’s hailed as a revelation. I won’t go that far here, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t great pleasures to be had in what Third Citizen is doing with its bare bones staging. Despite how carefully choreographed the production clearly is, the team manages to generate an atmosphere that’s loose and breezy. It’s an invitation, an opportunity to join in, relax and be part of a collective experience.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that As You Like It isn’t quite as known as some of Shakespeare’s other comedies. It lacks the focus of something like Twelfth Night or the riotous humor of something like Much Ado About Nothing. For great stretches it’s not even all that funny, more likely to produce warm chuckles than barrel laughs. Like in A Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeare is sending his characters into the woods, a place outside of civilized society, where their passions are free to run wild, but this time the fantastical elements are stripped away. This stretch of woods features no fairies or magic, just human beings tripping over the foibles built into their own nature. It’s a very episodic text, weaving in multiple disparate plot lines, some of which don’t even get started until halfway through, (though thankfully, the piece doesn’t go so far as to fall into the ‘everything including the kitchen sink’ mentality that plagues Cymbeline.).
Although I may wish it were, Third Citizen’s production is probably helped by the fact that the plot isn’t better known. Shakespeare pulls out a number of his usual narrative tricks which allows the play to feel familiar, but here there’s the bonus that we don’t know where it’s going. When new elements are tossed it, they become things to be delighted by, by us and clearly by the acting team. For all of the credit Shakespeare gets for mapping out the intricacies of human nature, Shakespeare’s comedies work best when the actors aren’t afraid to go broad. Villains twirl their mustaches and lovers leap into each other’s arms with reckless abandon. All of the actors in Third Citizen’s production are playing to the crowd and it brings out the play’s sense of fun. There’s a chance that returning from the pandemic has contributed to this. Every step the actors take seems to be infused with a look-what-I-get-to-do energy. Every challenge becomes a new chance for greater fun and they can’t wait to wring it for all its worth.
There’s a glow around Third Citizen’s As You Like It. It has something to do with the fact that the audience doesn’t come to a pre-established theater building. This is an audience that’s assembled. Half an hour before curtain the folding chairs and blankets that make up patron seating weren’t there. Half an hour after the lights go down, they’ll all be gone. It’s an audience that’s choosing to come together, that’s making the active choice to participate in the art. After a global pandemic that took live arts from us for so, the choice has more weight now. You can sink into it. So, choose to dive in.
As You Like It is produced by Third Citizen Theatre Company. It plays at the Salem Willows Band Shell August 28-September 6. For tickets and more information, visit their website: www.thirdcitizentheatre.org
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