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Much Ado About Shakespeare
| Article
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20663 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1992 |
2,134 Words |
| Author
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Scarlet Cheng
Scarlet Cheng, based in Los Angeles, is a contributing editor
to the arts section of The World & I. |
Yellow vellum posters with calligraphic verse drape the tree trunks of the velvet green forest.
"And thereby hangs a tale," reads one.
Further on, another reds,
"Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love:
And thou, thrice-crowned queen of nigh, survey
With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,
Thy huntress' name, which my full life doth sway.
O Rosalind! These trees shall be my books,
And in their barks my thought I'll character…"
Have we stumbled into the magical forest of Arden, the idyllic setting for As You Like It, where knaves and noble men and, of course, star-crossed lovers are lost, are found? Lovesick Orlando has been here, marking his works upon the forest walls.
But no, we are not in Arden, and it is the twentieth century, not the sixteenth. We are amid the tall oaks tulip poplars of Rock Creek Park, in the heart of Washington, D.C., and heading toward the outdoor Carter Barron Amphitheater, where the innovative Shakespeare Theatre is mounting its second annual "Free for all." William Shakespeare's immortal words paper the way from the parking lot to the theater.
This charming little gesture is just one more way Shakespeare is being revived by the company under the artistic direction of Michael Kahn. And the play awaiting beyond is an even greater pleasure. Though a frothy little romantic comedy, As You Like It will remind us that Shakespeare still touches us because the ideas, concerns, and emotions of Elizabethan England, another tumultuous era, are yet with us today.
Consider the company's production of Measure for Measure, running concurrently in its regular space, a brand-new theater in the Lansburgh Building on downtown Seventh Street, just of Pennsylvania Avenue. This is a play about power and morality and how absolutism falls to easily
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