Yeah yeah yeah!
Beatlemania meets the Bard in the joyous As You Like It
For centuries, scholars have debated whether William Shakespeare actually wrote the plays attributed to him. Some have proposed they were penned instead by the Earl of Oxford or playwright Christopher Marlowe.
Has anyone suggested John Lennon or Paul McCartney?
Launching a summer of Bardlemania in Vanier Park, director Daryl Cloran seamlessly interpolates two dozen Beatles songs into the text of As You Like It, set in 1960s Vancouver and “the wild Okanagan.”
The actors sing — generally pretty well and always with gusto — play the music and generate nothing but good vibrations in one of the most joyous productions in Bard’s history.
The show opens with a remarkable display of WWE-worthy WrestleMania as Charles the Wrestler (Austin Eckert) takes on all comers, previewing the company’s physical skills and Jonathan Hawley Purvis’ terrific choreography and fight direction.
Eckert reappears in psychedelic Jimi Hendrix mode (outrageous costume and wig by Carmen Alatorre), leading the onstage band alongside fellow guitarist Jeff Gladstone.
Estranged cousins Rosalind (a delightful Lindsey Angell) and Celia (the funny Harveen Sandhu) sing We Can Work It Out.
Celia watches Rosalind fall for hunky Orlando (Nadeem Phillip) and croons She Loves You.
Orlando serenades Rosalind with I Want to Hold Your Hand.
Half the fun is realizing how cleverly the lyrics mesh with the characters’ situations.
Banished to the Forest of Okanagan, Orlando and servant Adam (Andrew Wheeler) sing Help! They find it in the back-to-the-land camp and Let It Be ethos of mellow Duke Senior, the exiled good brother of nasty Duke Frederick
(Scott Bellis times two).
There, against the backdrop of a flower power VW bus, melancholy beat philosopher Jacques (Ben Carlson, as impressive here as in Macbeth) explains how all the world’s a stage. The Fool on the Hill first recites his equally apropos I Am the Walrus.
The yokel humour of rural folk in Shakespeare’s comedies doesn’t always work for contemporary audiences, but most of it does here. Among the funniest scenes is a great slapstick beating that Silvius (Ben Elliott) takes at the hands of his beloved Phoebe (Luisa Jojic) as she sings Something (in the way he moves) about her beloved Ganymede (Rosalind in disguise).
Additional kudos to Elliott for his sound design, superb musical direction and tasty Jerry Lee Lewis licks on the keyboard.
In a production filled with fine comic work, Kayvon Khoshkam’s Touchstone stands out. Dressed like Elton John, the sophisticated court clown shows his distaste for country life in a series of running gags involving bees, “the copulation of cattle” and the pronunciation of Ok-an-ag-an.
His courtship of Audrey (Emma Slipp) is a riot and his performance of Helter Skelter ferocious.
As the various complications resolve, the pairs of lovers marry and the wedding party begins, the show concludes with a series of Beatles anthems that could almost have been written for the occasion: Here Comes the Sun, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, Across the Universe, and All You Need Is Love.
You would have to be a real Nowhere Man not to be on your feet and singing along.