The Arts

Charming and captivating, As You Like It has rain-drenched debut

July 23, 2013 Helen Klein

BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP/Photo by Helen Klein

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As You Like It, one of Shakespeares most charming comedies, featuring some of the bards favorite themes mistaken identity, exile, parallel stories that intersect, and the misadventures of love detangled came to life not in the forest of Arden but in Bay Ridges own Narrows Botanical Garden, thanks to a vibrant production by Act-Out! Acting School presented to benefit the oasis.

Directed by Carolyn Dellinger and produced by John Stillwaggon, the production the third in Act-Out!s series, Shakespeare in the Park — utilizes the natural surroundings of the lush garden as its stage set a plan that went swimmingly Saturday night until the skies opened, putting a fairly literal damper on the proceedings.

For me, that was disappointment because the acting was sprightly, befitting the rhythmic and compelling script, which loses nothing for being just over 400 years young. But, local audiences can still head to NBG to see the remaining two performances (suggested contribution, $10 per person), scheduled for Saturday, July 27 at 2 p.m. and Sunday, July 28 at 6 p.m.

For this viewer, it took about five minutes to get into the locutions of Elizabethan England; from then on, the actors led by Mike Artzer (Orlando) and Julia Menn (Rosalind) romped through the stage business that centers on the exile of Rosalinds father, Duke Senior, whose position has been usurped by his unscrupulous brother, Frederick.

While the exiled Duke relocates to the forest a place, we are reminded, where there are tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones and good in every thing his daughter, much beloved of Fredericks daughter, Celia, had remained at court, where she encounters Orlando, who has exiled himself from his home, because of harassment by his brother.

Yes, as in much of Shakespeare, it is love at first sight on both parts an emotion that is rapidly complicated as Rosalind is banished by Frederick, and Orlando, fearing for his life because of his brothers wrath, decides to leave court as well.

Rosalind and Celia flee together, disguised as men, and head to Arden where Orlando also has gone, and where the courting dance, much contorted by the young womens disguise, continues to its happy conclusion, with four couples united in marriage and the exile of Duke Senior at an end, as his brother has repented the usurpation.

Unfortunately, thanks to Mother Nature, the audience at the first performance barely tasted the charms and hilarities of this timeless play, set by Act-Out! in 19^th century France.

Nonetheless, what I saw was delightful, the more so for being set in a garden whose own glories mimicked the Forest of Arden in which the play is set, and it left me thirsty for me.

As to how I liked it very much, indeed.