As You Like It – Royal Shakespeare Theatre

If you have tickets to see Kimberley Sykes’ production of As You Like It with the RSC this year, be aware that you may become part of the action.

As You Like It is one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, with romance, humour, mistaken identities, a fool and of course the famous seven ages of man speech.

The main strengths of this production for me were the performances. David Ajao was a likeable Orlando and Lucy Phelps a feisty Rosalind. We saw the understudy for Touchstone, Leo Wan, who was fantastic. As is common in contemporary productions, the genders of some characters had been changed. Sophie Stanton played Jacques, and it was such a shame that her quietness as part of the melancholy of the character meant that it was difficult to hear her at times. However, changing Silvius to Silvia didn’t make sense in the context of the play, because Phoebe’s discovery that Ganymede is in fact Rosalind shouldn’t put her off, if she was then willing to marry a woman, namely Silvia. There are other characters whose gender could have been changed that would have had a bigger and better impact.

The set used was very bare, with the audience being included, as Orlando gave members some of his poems to Rosalind to hold. The bareness worked well for the most part but it did seem strange for me to then bring on an enormous puppet as Hymen in the wedding scenes, when everything else had been so simple. I also wasn’t keen on the transition from life in the court to the forest of Arden, with backstage being revealed, a wardrobe being wheeled on, the house lights on and the actors changing on stage.

Despite the strong performances, the great chemistry between the cast and the humorous pantomime elements and audience interaction, this production just didn’t quite hit the mark for me.

Measure for Measure – RSC Live

The Duke of Vienna decides to leave, and chooses Angelo as his deputy to run the city in his absence. Angelo decides to clamp down on the loose morality of the city, including closing the brothels and sentencing a young man named Claudio to death, because he has got the girl who intends to marry pregnant. Claudio’s friend, Lucio, visits Claudio’s sister, Isabella, a novice nun, and she decides to try and persuade Angelo to change his mind. He tells her that he’ll let Claudio free in exchange for sex.

There are so many themes in this play which resonate with our lives today, including corrupt power, hypocrisy and the Me Too movement. It was quite shocking to hear Claudio utter ‘Who will believe thee?’ to Isabella when she says that she will tell people of his offer. It’s incredible that a line from a 400 year old play can still be so poignant today.

Although there are plenty of relatable themes, it is the ending which makes this play problematic. After the Duke’s return and his exposure of Claudio’r hypocrisy, Claudio is forgiven by his wife and the Duke announces that he will marry Isabella. She says nothing. It was interesting that during the feature shown during the interval about previous productions, it was mentioned that when Juliet Stevenson played Isabella, she tried to find moments in the play where a potential romance between Isabella and the Duke could be hinted, which would give the play a happier ending. In this production however, Isabella was simply passed from being the subject of one man’s power to another.

As always with the RSC, this was a high value production and the story was told incredibly clearly. Antony Byrne was charismatic as the Duke and Lucy Phelps was moving as Isabella. I also particularly liked Joseph Arkley as Lucio, who brought some light hearted moments to the play.

I knew nothing of this play beforehand and I’m glad that I got to see such a fantastic production through RSC Live.