As You Like It at Shakespeare and Co.

Review of June 20, 1999 performance, by Kathleen Tierney

Current Shakespeare & Co. schedule and ticket info.

A light-hearted look into love in changing times, William Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” opens the season on the stage of Shakespeare & Co.’s Stables Theatre. Cousins Rosalind and Celia defy convention and take their future into their own hands in this production set, not in 1597 in the Forest of Arden, but in Central Park in the 1890′s.

In Shakespeare’s time, women were not allowed onto the stage and men played the parts of both genders. In a modern company of men and women, it is interesting to find women playing the roles of some of the male characters. Judith McSpedden delivers an excellent performance in the role of the poet Jaques, with the reminder that “all the world is a stage.”

Members of Shakespeare & Co’s Summer Performance Institute swiftly engage the audience in the lively rhythms of the play. An excellent evening out and a great vehicle to distract you from whatever may be getting you down.