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Center Stage’s all-female production of As You Like It is fun and thought provoking by Anna Ditkoff

Changes to Shakespeare plays too often feel superficial, like a “Let’s set Much Ado About Nothing in the ‘20s so everyone can wear flapper dresses” kind of veneer that makes little sense and offers nothing actually innovative. Center Stage’s all-female As You Like It, however, felt truly fresh. It played with gender, fashion, and life choices in a fascinating way that accentuated the questions Shakespeare raised in the play.

As You Like It is the love story of Rosalind and Orlando. Rosalind’s uncle, Duke Frederick, banished her father, Duke Senior, and took his dukedom. Duke Frederick allowed Rosalind to stay as a companion to his daughter Celia but soon thought better of it and banished her too. Rosalind and Celia fled, along with the Duke’s clown Touchstone, to the forest of Arden to find Rosalind’s father.

AYLI_Press_with_captions4Orlando and Rosalind

Once there, Rosalind kind of forgot about Dad as she bumped into Orlando, who was coincidentally also running for his life—the two had fallen hard for one another shortly before their individual banishments. Too bad Rosalind was disguised as a man so she couldn’t exactly jump into Orlando’s arms. As is so often the case in Shakespeare’s comedies, wacky hijinks, mistaken identities, and brilliant wordplay ensued.

Director Wendy C. Goldberg’s use of an all-female cast was an amusing call back to to Shakespeare’s day when men played all the roles, but it went far beyond that.

The cast did not use easy signifiers like fake beards to effect gender switches. Instead, Goldberg and crew used costumes and make-up to create a gender neutral world where the deepening of a voice and masculine mannerisms were all that separate male from female.

That the actresses did this with a subtlety that still read was impressive. It forced the audience to contemplate what makes a person “a man.” What was it about the way Sofia Jean Gomez’s Orlando sat that made the character so clearly masculine? Why did the way Celeste Den exuded authority and menace as Duke Frederick feel male instead of female? Should it have?

AYLI_Press_with_captions3Sofia Jean Gomez as Orlando

The show’s leads sold Goldberg’s big idea. Gomez’s Orlando was charismatic and full of sex appeal. Coffey provided a strong yet vulnerable center as Rosalind. And Gomez and Coffey’s chemistry was palpable. Mattie Hawkinson was wonderfully bubbly as Celia offering an unlikely straight woman to Rosalind’s shenanigans.

Den killed it as both Duke Frederik and the shepherd Corin, differentiating the characters so completely one would be forgiven for not realizing the same actress played both roles. Margaret Daly’s turn as both Adam, Orlando’s servant, and Duke Senior did not fare as well. The physical transformation was so slight and the characters appeared so quickly one after another that it jarred the audience.

AYLI_Press_with_captions7Julia Coffey, Celeste Den, and Sofia Jean Gomez

Several of the actors—including Coffey and Gomez in a few scenes—crossed the line from silly fun to cartoonishness. The play worked better when the actors focused on finding the core of relatability in the absurdity rather than reaching for easy gags. Liz Daingerfield’s Silvius, Julia Brandeberry’s Audrey, and Jenna Rossman’s Phebe were particularly susceptible to this campiness.

But Angela Reed’s performance as Jacques would have been worth the price of admission if the rest of the show had just been dogs barking. Reed spoke with a razor-sharp off-handedness that made each line seem like something she just happened to think of. This delivery took the famous “All the world’s a stage” from hokey and over familiar to haunting.

AYLI_Press_with_captions2Angela Reed as Jacques

Scenic designer Arnulfo Maldonado and costume designer Anne Kennedy did a masterful job differentiating between the play’s court and forest settings. The court was a shiny, severe yet elegant box peopled with courtiers dressed all in black staring at their phones. The forest of Arden had a sweet hipster-camping feel with a ‘90s edge as exiles in artfully-layered, mismatched, patterned clothes sang along to songs played on a boombox. The transition from the one to the other was breathtaking as the harsh modern court receded and giant trees descended ethereally from the ceiling.

The major misstep with this production of As You Like It was that it felt like just one big idea rather than a unified whole. Some parts, particularly those that could be problematic for modern audiences, seemed uninspired while others were given added complications that felt like one too many accessories on a busy outfit.

The Silvius/Phebe relationship in which Silvius fawns over Phebe while she scorns him could have offered something interesting in the age of the men’s rights movement but instead was bogged down by overly broad performances by Daingerfield and Rossman with a resolution that felt anything but. The Touchstone/Audrey relationship with the clever clown (Charlotte Booker) trying to marry the ditzy Audrey so he can sleep with her and then leave her felt no less icky because the parts were both played by women. For some reason, Goldberg saddled Reed’s Jacques with an entirely unnecessary prescription drug problem and an awkward and unsuccessful lead-in to her speech about meeting Touchstone in the woods.

Despite these issues, Center Stage’s As You Like It is a beautiful, fun, and intriguing night of theater well-worth the trek to Towson University’s Main Stage Theater, the company’s temporary home while it renovates its Calvert Street digs.

AYLI_Press_with_captions5

Author Anna Ditkoff has been writing about arts and culture in Baltimore since 1998. She is perhaps best known for creating the Murder Ink column for the Baltimore City Paper. 

All photos by Richard Anderson for Center Stage.

As You Like It at Center Stage by William Shakespeare 
Directed by Wendy C. Goldberg 
Jan 15–Feb 14

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