BWW Reviews: You Can't Help But Love AS YOU LIKE IT at Post5 Theatre

After nearly two years of reviewing shows in and around Portland, I have discovered something about myself that I didn't know before: I love Shakespeare. I grew up disliking the Bard, and even as a theatre major in college I did whatever I could to avoid his work. But now, after seeing a number of productions recently, I've joined the cult. I finally get it.

The show that finally tipped me over the edge was Post5 Theatre's production of As You Like It. I couldn't begin to describe the plot to you - the usual Shakespearean comic meanderings involving nobles and their servants, mistaken identities, cross-dressing, and love at first sight. The story doesn't matter here - it's the mixups, the merriment, and the joy the performers are having in presenting the tale to an audience. That's what's made me fall in love with Shakespeare at this late date: Actors adore him and can't wait to share that love with the rest of us, and it brings out the zest in their acting. And who doesn't want to watch actors having fun?

Director Ty Boice has set his cast loose on the play, with uniformly goofy results. Every actor has a jump for joy, a snarky reaction, an anachronistic prop, or some other bit that lets him or her have a moment of consipratorial glee with the audience. Be it a shrug at the end of a heated conversation or a chance to blow bubbles, Boice lets them all have fun. The play starts with seriousness - brothers Oliver and Orlando feuding over their master/servant relationship, young Rosalind being berated by her uncle, who has exiled her father to the woods - but this is just the setup. Orlando falls in love with Rosalind at first sight, but she has to hide (disguised as a man, of course) to escape her uncle, and that's when the fun begins.

I could list all fifteen actors and describe the fun they're having in these roles. Standouts were Isabella Buckner, whose Rosalind is spunky and girlish, and who turns her male interpretation into a sheriff straight out of a Western; Jessica Tidd, who makes Rosalind's cousin Celia into a long-lost Kardashian; Keith Cable, whose deadpan Jaques gets the play's best speech (the seven ages of man) and manages to get laughs without ever losing the melancholy; and Will Steele, who starts out as a masked wrestler who can't even form words, later plays the spoons, and ends the play dressed in white, gaily (in every sense of the word) strewing flowers on the stage.

I also have to give very great thanks to whoever decided to add three strolling musicians to the play. Again, I'm not a scholar, so perhaps Shakespeare called for musicians in his original script. But in this case, as the play is (more or less) set in the present day, the musicians incorporate not sonnets set to music, but songs we've all heard on the radio over the past thirty years. I won't enumerate the titles - that would be spoiling some of the best laughs in the show - but I can't imagine that any of the original artists would ever have expected their hit songs to end up in a Shakespearean play. And the threesome (musical director Christopher Beatty along with Anne Adams and Leia Young) all sing, cavort, and play a number of different instruments; each also plays one or more small roles in the comedy as well.

Adding to the joy is that Post5 Theatre has found a new space in Sellwood. It's a great improvement over the old spot (and its hard-on-the-backside benches), and, while still a work in progress, is definitely a comfortable place to sit back and enjoy an evening with the Bard. The staging space is larger and more versatile than their prior location, and designer Randall Pike has made great use of it. I'm sure old Will would appreciate the great energy this young and able cast and crew has put into As You LIke It. I just want to go back and laugh some more.

ADDENDUM: Post5 Theatre is also showing a delightful after-play on several of the nights As You Like It is being performed. It's called Eh, Things, written and directed by Cassandra Boice, and combines elements of clowning, mime, music, comedy, a few political jabs, a dash of inside Portland humor, and several of the talented cast members of As You Like It to make a joyful late-night entertainment. Even if Shakespeare's not your thing, laughter has to be. Don't miss it.

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