| Description |
Ellen Geer's alfresco staging is set in 19th century America - indicated primarily by songs and costumes. Touchstone looks and talks like a Shakespeare-quoting dandy from Mark Twain. Women play the traditionally male roles of Jaques and Adam, but Geer rejects any topical political gestures. The blithe mingling of blacks and whites in this Reconstruction-era forest is ignored as effortlessly as the plot's many improbabilities. Instead, the era is used simply to point out the expansive universality of Shakespeare's themes and language. As I sat in a dappled glen on a perfect Sunday afternoon, watching Willow Geer's Rosalind and Mike Peebler's Orlando, I was again reminded of just why this play is staged so often. Sunday afternoons only. |
