Catchy new tunes sometimes turn out to be plot roadblocks
Some may think of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” as a ceaseless font of wordplay: such a jungle of double entendres, linguistic reversals and feints that its heroine, Rosalind, mistress of the pun, must have superhuman wit. It’s as if she can see five conversational steps ahead of the rest of us — especially her beloved, the slowontheuptake Orlando — and would gladly plot them out to spare us mere mortals the trouble of catching up.
With “As You Like It — A New Musical,” San Francisco Shakespeare Festival attempts, somewhat successfully, to let her and the other characters breathe.
The company’s Free Shakespeare in the Park production, directed and adapted by Rebecca J. Ennals, has recruited some prodigious musical talent to bring fresh air into Shake
speare’s romantic comedy, commissioning nine original songs from the Kilbanes — lately of “Weightless” fame — and two by actor, composer and comedian Phil Wong.
The result, which opened Sunday, July 7, at Pleasanton’s Amador Valley Community Park (before touring to sites in Cupertino, Redwood City and San Francisco) makes Rosalind (Regina Morones) a bit more earthbound, a bit less intimidating — fitting for a company whose whole mission centers on access.
When Duke Frederick (Dave Sikula), out of long-burning anger at Rosalind’s father, banishes her from court, Rosalind and her cousin, Celia (Anne Yumi Kobori), get a song (“I’ll Go Along with Thee”) to help them don disguises, like little girls playing dressup, then run away to the Forest of Arden. When Rosalind, dressed as Ganymede, a boy, refutes Orlando’s assertion that he might die of a broken heart, her monologue makes literary references from Troilus and Cressida to Hero and Leander; it becomes a song in which all the women of the play join in. It’s now less a parade of allusions than a goodnatured group tease, one gender razzing the other, marveling at its haplessness.
Catchy and winsome as the new melodies are, the songs often blunt the show’s momentum, more illustrating than developing character and plot. Performed by Brendan Getzell on guitar and piano and Adam Thompson on bass, with cast members joining in on instruments ranging from accordion to ukulele, each track features repeated, slowly crescendoing chords that might sound moving at an indie rock concert but that register as hollow and static in live theater, where songs must be vehicles for change. The music often leaves a chunk of space between when a lyric ends and the next measure begins, with Ennals’ direction failing to build something in the lacunae. You might find yourself acutely aware of each beat in a measure. Actors seem to be merely marking time before they can sing or speak again.
While the singing is uneven, some voices stand out. Kobori’s sunshiny soprano sharpens and warms its surroundings into focus, and Andrea J. Love brings comic bravura, a penetrating tone and musical theater razzledazzle to the role of Phebe, a forest bumpkin who won’t love the right person until she’s hoodwinked into it.
Much of the acting compensates for lackluster musical interludes. As the tonguetied Orlando, Michael Barrett Austin makes a whole silent monologue out of aborted utterances, pursed lips and nearly formed syllables. Maryssa Wanlass, as Jaques, makes the famous “all the world’s a stage” speech into a way to recover from being held at knifepoint, a means of reinserting himself among and appreciating the ragtag forest band of which he’s both an observer and an integral part. Gwen Loeb, in all manner of ensemble roles, instantly defines the stakes and situation of every scene in which she’s a part, yanking archaic, highfalutin text down to earth, such that anyone who’s ever felt lust or scorn can understand exactly what she’s saying.
That’s the strength, too, of Morones’ Rosalind. This heroine seems a little less inclined to dazzle us for dazzling’s sake, a little less interested in cowing us with her cleverness. Her games are the invention of the moment, an improvisational tool to keep the conversational ball in motion as long as she can. She asks not, “How might I trounce you?” but, “How might we keep having fun?”