William Shakespeare's delightful, gender-bending romantic comedy As You Like It hit the cozy Theatre 2 stage at NAPA for a brief run between April 12 and 14 as a production directed by US-based Trinidadian dramatist, Christine Menzies, and featuring drama students of the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT).
Menzies' adaptation of one of the English bard's most popularly produced works largely maintains the integrity of the original script. When, for example, the melancholic Lord Jacques (Aryana Mohammed) launches into the famous monologue: "All the world's a stage/And all the men and women merely players ...", a knowledgeable April 13 audience silently mouthed at least the first four lines.
Mohammed's expressive rendition of the timeless speech could have led to sustained applause had the action of the play not sped along and left it as a pleasing, unforgettable echo.
Elsewhere in the action, the vernacular appears, but a concerted effort is made to retain the English language of 400 years ago.
The central theme of unrequited and misplaced love is also scrupulously sustained, though Duke Frederick is portrayed in the Menzies script as a "Duchess", emphatically played by Charissa Sealey � who returns as the characters Corin and Hymen, the god of marriage.
Touchstone, the court jester–a man in the original script - is played by Andrea Codrington, who plays a character of initially undetermined gender, who eventually marries the flirtatious Audrey, played by Eugenia Lemo whom we had earlier seen as Madame Le Beau.
Vedesh Nath does not always convince with his enthusiastic portrayal of the love-struck, central character, Orlando, but is clearly someone with a future role in Caribbean theatre. His monologues are crisp and his eyes betray the mixed passions of love, fear, disappointment and joy experienced by his character.
In the end, Orlando gets the hand of Rosalind, superbly played by Karian Ford–my pick for star of the show. It is Rosalind who is the focus of Orlando's love and he pursues her through the mythical Forest of Arden but instead meets Ganymedien, who is actually Rosalind unimpressively disguised as the male companion of her cousin, Celia–the Duchess's daughter who is banished because of her association with Rosalind.
The pathetically sentimental shepherd, Silvius (Makesi Algernon) eventually gains the hand of a beautiful Phoebe who falls in love with Ganymedien who is, of course, Rosalind in disguise. In the process, Phoebe who is excellently played by Kemlon Nero, delivers another of the play's memorable monologues in describing the mistaken Ganymedien: "Think not I love him, though I ask for him;/'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well./But what care I for words? Yet words do well/When he that speaks them pleases those that hear."
The play's tangled web of intrigue and outlandish bacchanal resonates, in Menzies' view, as "surprisingly familiar."
In her programme notes, the California-based director describes the play as "lightly touching on themes that are ... incredibly recognisable to our society: political coup; betrayal and commandeering of property amongst family members; neglect of elders; a longing to escape urban stress to rural simplicity; and, of course, love."
Veteran actor/drama instructor, Michael Cherrie–who expertly plays Sir Oliver Martex, Charles the wrestler and Duke Senior in the play � says the language of Shakespeare is not always easily understood "in 2013 where nobody speaks like that."
"The story is in the language," he says, "and that's a challenge."
It was a challenge engaged by Menzies' charges with a high level of competence and passion.
