Style Weekly: "As You Like It" is "vibrant, witty"

From Style Weekly:

Contract of Breeches

The Richmond Shakespeareans sign up for a lot of costume changes in a play already full of mistaken identities.

by Mary Burruss

I confess: Richmond Shakespeare’s concept of five people playing all the parts in a Shakespeare play is often distracting, and at times I find the prop/costume changes awkward. But the five-actor version of “As You Like It,” playing at Second Presbyterian Church, has made me a convert to this type of production.

Director Andrew Hamm has done a masterful job of choreographing a vibrant, witty homage to this prototype of romantic comedy. The transitions were seamless, and the onstage costume changes mostly worked well.

The many characters who romped through the forest of Arden, celebrating the rites of spring with music and dance, could threaten to get mixed up — especially considering the multiple identities already at work within the story — but there was an ease and confidence to the production that precluded any disorientation.

Hamm warmed up the audience with a piano-accompanied set of contemporary love songs. It set the tone for a breezy show, delivering a cast of characters that exuded playfulness. Frank Creasy (as Charles, the Duke’s wrestler) pushed the limits of kayfabe during the better-than-WWE wrestling scene with Patrick Bromley’s Orlando.

Sunny LaRose was adorable as the love-struck Rosalind (disguised as the youth Ganymede in the forest). LaRose’s onstage relationship with Julia Rigby’s Celia portrayed a connection whose bond was “stronger than that of sisters.” And despite the wonderful silliness of Creasy’s dancing and Bromley and Adam Minks in women’s roles, the gender-bending performances of the two natural girls were the strongest overall.

The beautiful costumes designed by Rebecca Cairns blended soft, earthy tones of creams, gold and floral prints that intertwined through all the costumes like ivy on a tree trunk. The effect was a cohesive, well-tailored look that added a dash of sophistication and sumptuousness to the show. Cairns not only designed a whimsical collection of costumes, but also managed to define characters with minimal pieces that functioned well for those quick transformations.

Times-Dispatch: "This is as I like it."

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

A rollicking version of 'As You Like It'
Saturday, Mar 29, 2008 - 12:08 AM
By SUSAN HAUBENSTOCK
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

It was when Adam Mincks went to put on the tulle skirt that things went over the top.

Shakespeare's "As You Like It" depends on gender switching (the heroine, Rosalind, disguises herself as a man), and Richmond Shakespeare often depends on a tiny cast to portray multiple characters without regard to their sex.

But this five-actor "As You Like It" includes enough gender-bending to spin your head around.

It's the tale of Orlando, who falls in love with Rosalind just before she's banished from her uncle's court. She and her cousin Celia flee in disguise to the forest of Arden, where Rosalind's father is in exile.

There they meet various rustics, the clown Touchstone and the sentimental Jacques, as well as Orlando, who escapes to the forest when he learns that his brother is planning to kill him.

Everyone falls in love in the forest, and all ends well (but that's another play).

In this version, the comedy is amplified by quick changes of role that result in, for instance, bearded Patrick Bromley playing a country maiden and Julia Rigby as a lovelorn shepherd.

In Rebecca Cairns' endlessly versatile and lovely costumes, they add a cap here and a wreath there to mark the characters, with the actors' skills making the transformations magical.

As is the company's frequent practice -- at least for its indoor season -- costume pieces are hung in plain sight, so that when Mincks, hilarious here in numerous roles, goes for that skirt, we know that something even more delicious is coming.

Director Andrew Hamm (who is onstage as accompanist) has infused the production with physicality and music, his trademarks.

There's so much roughhousing that a fight choreographer (actor Frank Creasy) and a fight choreography consultant (David White) were needed to plan the action.

And Hamm has provided pleasant melodies so his cast can sing as appropriate. With nonstop energy and an approach to language that is colloquial and deceptively relaxed, Hamm has created a rollicking version of this classic.

Every actor is superb, especially considering the demands of their many roles. Rigby has less flashy parts such as Celia and Silvius, but she is charming. Bromley is romantic as the lovelorn Orlando and ridiculous as the silly goatherd Audrey.

Sunny LaRose is a marvelous Rosalind, brave and emotional and admirable, even when disguised as Ganymede. Creasy is a marvel as he morphs from aged servant Adam to wrestler Charles to emotional Jacques. Creasy is an actor who is always fully committed.

Mincks has a breakthrough performance here as he achieves perfection in a fistful of roles -- Oliver, the cruel brother who has a change of heart; the foppish courtier LeBeau; the dignified Duke Senior; the clown Touchstone; and the tulle-skirted Phoebe.

Mincks changes accents and attitudes with seeming ease; he even appears to change height. This is as I like it.

Images from "As You Like It"

Here are a few of Eric Dobbs' beautiful promotional images for As You Like It, opening Friday, March 28th. As usual, the costumes by Rebecca Cairns and Annie Hoskins are just gorgeous! The cast isn't bad-looking either.

Celia (Julia Rigby) coaxes a smile out of Rosalind (Sunny LaRose).

Jaques (Frank Creasy) muses that "All the world's a stage" with the help of Amiens.

Orlando (Patrick Bromley) listens as "Ganymede" slanders the name of Rosalind.

Touchstone (Adam Mincks) freaks out Daffy Duck-style. The lovely Audrey and the simple William look on, fairly oblivious.

"It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue..."

Coming Attractions: "As You Like It"

Overlapping with performances of Measure for Measure, we're now in full-time rehearsal mode for the beloved comedy As You Like It, opening March 28.

Directed by Andrew Hamm, with costumes designed by Rebecca Cairns, the show stars Patrick Bromley, Frank Creasy, Sunny LaRose, Adam Mincks, and Julia Rigby. Frank is a mainstay of our stage, having appeared in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest, the latter which also showcased Patrick's comedic skills. It's been a decade since Sunny has played with Richmond Shakespeare, and Julia and Adam are both making their debuts with us.

This production celebrates Richmond Shakespeare's (then the Encore Theatre Company's) first-ever Shakespearean production over a decade ago, and is being presented in our trademark five-actor format, complete with cross-dressing and chaos. I've been describing it as "a love letter to the five-actor format." Patrick plays both the romantic Orlando and the love-struck Audrey. Frank begins as the usurping Duke Frederick and finishes the play as the melancholy Jaques, who muses, "All the world's a stage..." Sunny is our story's hero, the brilliant Rosalind, who disguises herself as a boy; she also gives a hilarious turn as the bumpkin William. Adam is our big character actor, playing the flamboyant LeBeau, the wicked older brother Oliver, the clown Touchstone, and the, ahem, "irresistible" Phebe. Julia brings spunk and smarts to Celia and unrequited devotion to poor spurned Silvius.

Somehow, four couples must be married by the end of this show. How that's going to work with only five actors? You'll have to come out and see.

It's a play about love and hate, devotion and despair, brothers and cousins, fathers and daughters, country life versus city life. Mostly, though, it's about a girl dressed as a boy pretending to be a girl. Comedy!

We began the rehearsal process by working with ComedySportz's Christine Walters on improv, then Jill Bari Steinberg on multiple-character skills, and these two ladies have really made their mark on this show. I'm now in the process of composing the music for the show, and I'm pretty excited about finally taking advantage of the fact that our theatre has a Bosendorfer baby grand piano in it...

The show previews on March 27th and opens on the 28th. Don't miss it!

Thoughts on Henley's Production: "The Spanish Tragedy

Length advisory: I'm vying for Bruce Miller for the title of 'longest blog' post by an Artistic Director.

Let me start by saying there's plenty of room for another company doing classical theatre in Richmond, especially if they're as nice as these guys. Last night proves it. Henley's work provides another avenue for Richmond actors to keep classical 'muscles' in shape, and helps increase the overall size of the theatre-going audience. It's been great to see the theatre community support their work and I was delighted to count myself part of that response. Henley won't pull audience away from Barksdale or Firehouse or even Richmond Shakespeare. I'm convinced that die-hard theatre fans will see our productions and try the new company in town, not forgo one for the other.

After seeing Henley's second production, (also caught Thoreau last fall) I'm pleased to report that Henley does a credible job with a tough play. Here's a company reaching very far, giving actors a chance at really chanllenging roles. In this outing, I feel that a few early production choices hampered their efforts---the set is serviceable apart from what the audience must observe as actors squat to pass under the arches; as our RS fans know, I'm a proponent of less scenery rather than more. More importantly, I really hope that Henley expands how they think about that Pine Camp performance space. It could be used in vastly different ways; here, the company feels squashed into one corner while the audience occupies 3/4 of the available space in the room.

What there isn't room for (or time, even in a looong post) is to comment on all the peformances, so with apologies to those whom I'm needing to omit: it's especially fun to see actors who've worked with RS doing great elsewhere, like Stephen Ryan, Patrick Bromley and Frank Creasy (at left as Gonzalo in the RSF07 Tempest) and new faces coming on with great promise--folks like Dean Knight, Kerry McGee Alison Haracznak and in particular Leslie Cline, as the Viceroy, a new arrival to Richmond who uses an excellent voice with dexterity. Cline has a terrific, clear resonance that fills the room and forces everyone around to come up to her level. She's a great balance for Bromley and Frank Creasy, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of her.

Frank's Hieronimo is fantastic, blending madness with self---he was especially wonderful in a couple of understated scenes; I was thrilled by his work. See below for a connection to Hamlet there.

For another, it was also fun to connect with Stephen Ryan's character of the Ghost of Andrea. Having just played the Ghost in Hamlet with my students I found myself thinking "Hey, an epilogue speech for the ghost....I like it!" Stephen masters a sense of otherness and yet nicely humanizes Andrea, even in the afterlife.

The character of Revenge personified is brought to life by Michael Sater, one of those actors from whom you just can't move your eyes. His face seems to evoke the kind French theatrical ancestry that has informed Cirque du Soleil's bouffant clowns for decades; here, despite the gore, the overall effect from Revenge isn't so much grand guignol as the emcee from Cabaret--but in his off hours. I felt he could have gone much farther but the choice for an understated performance was a logical one and interesting to watch. Sater is a remarkable talent and though Thoreau and Revenge were a great start, I'm looking forward to seeing him really tested.


Lastly, Patrick Bromley as the devious Lorenzo is TONS of fun (easily the strongest voice in the company, here he is looking a little less devious as Trinculo in the 2007 RSF production of The Tempest, directed by Anthony Luciano); he's another actor with only more terrific roles ahead. His ringing bass adds an air of complete authority to Lorenzo. It's one of the characters I feel Kyd creates and then doesn't quite know what to do with once he's created him. In comparison, only Hieronimo gets an actual arc through to any kind of resolution.

As such, I'm thrilled that Bromley, Creasy and the lovely Julia Rigby (great in a couple small roles in Tragedy) will all be in Richmond Shakespeare's season finale, As You Like It, where audiences will have a chance to see them again!

Cheers to Henley for really chewing into tough material (if Frank Creasy will forgive the pun) and hanging on.

* * *

THE PLAY ITSELF

Watching Henley's production of The Spanish Tragedy Saturday night, I was struck by the repetition not only of plot devices clearly echoing through to Shakespeare's Hamlet, but little word choices that kept ringing in my ears:

guerdon - This is an ancient word, which feels more French than Spanish, and in fact part of its roots come from Old French, as well as Medieval Latin, but the further roots, meaning essentially "gift" or "reward" are in the furthest recesses of Indo-European language families.


Kyd uses it a whole lot in Tragedy. What's interesting is that Shakespeare also loved the word. Costard, in Love's Labor's Lost makes nearly a whole scene out of guerdon. And here's the fun part: the peak of Kyd's use of it in Tragedy included these lines:

My presents are not of sufficient cost
And being worthless, all my labor's lost.
Yet might she love me for my valiancy... II.1 (17-19)

Now, clearly it's a convention not limited to Elizabethan dramatists to ponder over the efforts expended in the pursuit of love, but the repeated use of guerdon really highlighted that moment for me, especially because Costard gives the word a spanish flair in translation. Add a mocking Spanish accent to the word when it appears, Costard has just been give a little money by---you guessed it---an outrageous Spaniard, "Don Adriano de Armado:"

"Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration!
O, that's the Latin word for three farthings: three
farthings--remuneration.--'What's the price of this
inkle?'--'One penny.'--'No, I'll give you a
remuneration:' why, it carries it. Remuneration!
why, it is a fairer name than French crown. I will
never buy and sell out of this word." --Love's Labor's Lost, (III.i.)

I may roast proverbially for it, but in our 2002 RSF production we changed "three farthings" to "ten bucks," and ended the speech there. Walking off, Costard repeated "Ree-myoo-ner-ah-thee-ohn" and "gerrr-dohn" a few times before an entering character interrupted him. I think it was successful in that production.

Of course, one neededn't know that three farthings wasn't a large sum to see how much fun Costard has with the new name for a unit of currency. The point here, of course, is that there's plenty to be plumbed in comparisons between "Spanish Tragedy" and Shakespeare's own work.

We know that by 1592 The Spanish Tragedy was a huge hit; Ned Alleyn probably played the Hieronomo role with Lord Strange's Men and a few players of the Admiral's Men, (prominent troupes of the day) working at the Rose Theatre with Geoffrey Rush. (er, Philip Henslowe)

The real question for me is: was The Spanish Tragedy part of the repertoire when Lord Strange's Men, touring through the English countryside, stopped in a sleepy little town on the Avon River, short a man (if memory serves, one of their own had just been killed in a bar brawl), and many argue that so began the theatrical career of a young Will Shakespeare.

For a really interesting local blog on Elizabeth, Strange, Kyd, Marlowe and Shakespeare (and some comments on Robert Southwell from yours truly), check out this posting by Bruce Miller.

Just a couple further connections to wrap up, of the many echoes of Hamlet in ST: Like Hieronimo's madness, the Dane of course puts on an 'antic disposition.' In English, a "Hamlet" may be a small village or may invoke WS's son Hamnet, but the ancient Norse word "Amleth" means essentially, "madness." Also fascinatingly similar to Shakespeare were names like Isabella (in RS's upcoming Measure for Measure) and Balthasar, as well as the death of a regal woman offstage--echoing in Macbeth. So too, were all the other pre-Hamlet echoes: the Hero (Hieronimo) staging a play-within-the-play-to-catch-a-murderer, and the Ghost demanding revenge for the loss of a father. The connections were many and really enjoyable.

Thanks to all involved.


Up next, Measure for Measure, in the RST, A Midsummer Night's Dream with the Ballet at the Landmark, and a few Acts of Faith.


--Grant Mudge

Merry Christmas, Ebenezer!

We closed A Christmas Carol for Two Actors yesterday afternoon, with a delightful audience; Julie Phillip's parents made it, and Dad was tapped to be Martha Cratchit. Delightful. Also seen were several longtime Hoodwinker fans (the official fanclub of alumni"Carol" actor Molly Hood, and first year "Mudgekins," a phrase I'm not sure they even yet knew.

I'd like to take a moment to thank our wonderful audiences for attending; it's for you that we work all year to create our art. Thank you, too, to all of Richmond Shakespeare's artists, staff and trustees for a year of tremendously hard work. From Doctor Faustus to a great summer festival and from Will Power to Youth Richmond to welcoming fantastic new additions like Kerry Hugins, (our new Bookkeeper, whom everyone absolutely loves) it's been a very busy year, indeed. In fact, even though the offices are closed this week, we're looking at posting a bit more of a roundup here as we close out 2007, so check back toward New Year's.

Until then, here are two shots from the closing weekend of "Carol," the first from Andrew and Karen Hamm's Christmas party: that's Julia Rigby, Patrick Bromley (The Temepst) and Frank Creasy (The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night), who will all be performing for RS this coming March in As You Like It, with Andrew directing. I'm absolutely thrilled, and very much looking forward to that show--many of you know it's very dear to me, and I can't imagine a more wonderful cast and director to take us into the forest of Arden.

First up, though, is Measure for Measure, part of the Acts of Faith series of professional theatre all across Richmond, and I'm quite pleased to announce here that Julie Phillips will also be performing in Measure, making three in a row for this tremendous actor. That's Julie, below, with yours truly, enjoying a little well-earned holiday cheer at Penny Lane Pub, across 5th street from our Chapel theatre at 2nd Presbyterian. Julie is simply amazing. It's been my absolute joy to work with her, and I'm very grateful for the chance. She's smart, incredibly organized, and one of the warmest people I've ever met. Do come see her in Measure, (It opens Feb 7), after which I promise, she can have a little more than one week's downtime between projects.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and God bless us, every one.

-Grant

Picture of the Week: December 11, 2007

Maybe "Picture of the Week" is a better idea than "of the Day." Don't be surprised if it's more or less frequent; I'm pretty much just going to slap up one of my favorite pictures from the Richmond Shakespeare vault whenever it occurs to me. If it's been a while, and you haven't seen one, let me know. Or if you have requests, like "How about one of those great pictures of Foster Solomon and Susan Sanford in The Taming of the Shrew?"

Today's pic comes from the famous "Girls Gonne Wilde" action of Twelfth Night, and features Frank Creasy (left) as Sir Toby Belch, and Dave White (right) as Sir Andrew Ague-Cheek. Photo by Eric Dobbs.

Fans of Dave and Frank, two of my favorite actors, will be glad to hear that they will both be gracing our stage in the coming months; Dave as the Duke in Measure for Measure opening February 7, and Frank as Jacques in As You Like It opening March 27.