Marin Shakespeare celebrates!
This year the Marin Shakespeare Company celebrates its 25th anniversary by opening the season with As You Like It, one of Shakespeare’s most popular comedies. The group first performed the play in 1990, when Robert and Leslie Currier first turned the dreamed-of theater company into a reality; the production was directed by Ann Brebner.
The 25 years wasn’t a breeze but rather a slow development out of persistent hard work. This past year saw a major change in the life of the company, when an anonymous donor gave the company a million dollar grant, ensuring a future with greater stability and the promise of more expansive theater, both technically and conceptually.
The play’s opening was also marked by gifts of recognition: from the company’s Board of Directors, the city of Marin, and the US Senate, which recorded the anniversary in the Congressional Record.
As You Like It is one of Shakespeare’s more complex and merrier plays, full of disguises, abrupt shifts in allegiance and a deus ex machina or two or three. Four couples, rather than the usual one or two, ultimately wend their way to the marriage celebration at the play’s end. Principal among these are Rosalind (Elena Wright) and Orlando de Boys (Teddy Spencer), both of whom are forced into exile by Duke Frederick (Scott Coopwood). The former because she is the daughter of the Duke Senior who is usurped by Frederick, and the latter for being son of the deceased Roland de Boys, a loyal supporter of the Duke Senior.
Madly in love after a short and sudden encounter, Rosalind and Orlando flee separately from the court, Rosalind disguised as a boy and accompanied by her cousin and loyal friend Celia, Frederick’s daughter (Livia Demarchi), and the court fool Touchstone (Adam Roy), and Orlando accompanied by his old family servant, Adam (Kit Grimm). Everyone escapes to the Forest of Arden, where Rosalind’s father, Duke Senior (Scott Coopwood), has also fled, exiled with a band of followers who, fortunately for everyone, are given to singing lovely madrigals, “Under the Greenwood Tree,” “Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind” and “It Was a Lover and His Lass,” making the play a song showcase. All were sweetly sung by the young musicians who formed the duke’s entourage along with the pastoral forest dwellers.
Although the production has only three equity actors, it’s full of lively and talented performers, all of whom take to their parts with commitment and enthusiasm. This coupled with Currier’s excellent direction – he’s obviously skilled at bringing out the best in his actors – led to a performance that was quickly timed, clearly delivered and generally delightful. The parts were played with uniform skill and vigor.
The newly received donation made possible a revamp of the sound system so that not a word was lost even though the performance took place outside at the Forest Meadows Amphitheatre on the Dominican University of California campus. Cool, but not as bone chillingly cold as other outdoor venues in the Bay Area, the amphitheater is an ideal setting for a play set in an imaginary forest.
This summer As You Like It is joined by two other productions, Romeo and Juliet and Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband. If you’re looking for charming and fresh productions, set your GPS for Marin and pack your picnic basket. In celebration of their 25 years, all the performances of As You Like It are pay-as-you-like, with a family discount matinee on August 3, youth of 18 and under free.
– Jaime Robles
As You Like It continues through August 10. For tickets and information, call 415-499-4488, or visit www.marinshakespeare.org.
Photo: Elena Wright as Rosalind (left) and Livia Demarchi as Celia.