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    Review: Finding Community in ‘As You Like It’

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    This shimmering Shakespeare adaptation at the Delacorte Theater retains the outline of the original, while making space for songs. You don’t have to sing along, though you may want to.The Forest of Arden is where you head when the city won’t hold you. When laws are unjust, when custom constricts, when institutions squeeze and shrink you, here, at last, is space to breathe and to be. Manhattan razed its woodlands long ago, of course. (A lone stand of trees, in Inwood Hill Park, remains.) But on a summer night, in Central Park, squint a little and you can imagine a forest here — the refuge, the bounty, the hush.You won’t have to squint hard at “As You Like It,” the shimmering Shakespeare adaptation at the Delacorte Theater, courtesy of Public Works. Adapted by Laurie Woolery, who directs, and the singer-songwriter Shaina Taub, who provides the music and lyrics, this easeful, intentional show bestows the pleasures typical of a Shakespeare comedy — adventure, disguise, multiple marriages, pentameter for days. And, in just 90 minutes, it unites its dozens of actors and its hundreds of audience members as citizens of the same joyful community.Taub and Woolery’s adaptation retains the outline of the original, while shortening and tightening the talkier bits, making space for songs. Rosalind (Rebecca Naomi Jones), the daughter of the exiled Duke Senior (Darius De Haas), falls instantly for Orlando (Ato Blankson-Wood), the younger son of a dead nobleman. Threatened by the current Duke (Eric Pierre), they flee, with friends and servants, to the Forest of Arden, where Duke Senior has formed an alternate, more egalitarian court.Taub has cast herself as Jaques, the emo philosopher, who opens the show with the limpid ballad, “All the World’s a Stage,” singing: “All the world’s a stage/And everybody’s in the show/Nobody’s a pro.”These lyrics do a lot of work, work that transcends paraphrase. “As You Like It” is a production of Public Works, a division of the Public Theater that partners with community groups. So the song serves as a kind of pre-emptive apology, an acknowledgment of amateurism. Yet the lines function as an invitation, too, an inducement to imagine yourself as part of the show, to join in its creation. A big ask? Maybe. On a breeze-soothed evening, with the city quieted and the lights aglow, it won’t feel that way. And for those who blench and tremble at the thought of audience participation, take a breath. You don’t even have to sing along, though you may want to.I first saw “As You Like It” during a short run at the Delacorte Theater in the summer of 2017, after the travel bans had been instituted, but before the widespread adoption of the Trump administration’s family separation policy. All scrolling felt like doom scrolling then; to open the morning paper was to start the day with some fresh horror. Things could — and did — get worse. I remember experiencing the show, profoundly and with some tears, as a temporary respite.From left, Idania Quezada, Christopher M. Ramirez and Rebecca Naomi Jones in the Public Works adaptation of “As You Like It” at the Delacorte Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesTo revisit it now, when disaster seems less immediate, is to relax into the brisk pleasure of the work. Jones, an actress with a voice of steel and sweetness, like a knife baked into a birthday cake, is a dynamic Rosalind. And if you admired Blankson-Wood in “Slave Play,” you will enjoy his playful turn here, as in the exuberant R&B number, “Will U Be My Bride.” But the show’s success owes less to any individual performer than to the generous and sociable whole. Taub’s lyrics are simple, but it takes effort to write lines that feel effortless. The same goes for Sonya Tayeh’s fluid choreography, restaged by Billy Griffin and achievable for all kinds of bodies, and Woolery’s insouciant use of stage space.The stage itself has an oddly flimsy set, by Myung Hee Cho, a turntable dotted with trees that don’t look a lot like trees. But Emilio Sosa’s costumes and Isabella Byrd’s lights provide happy splashes of color. James Ortiz designed the deer puppets; if they lack the emotional heft of the cow he designed for the current revival of “Into the Woods,” well, you can’t have everything. That “Into the Woods” revival is directed by Lear deBessonet, who inaugurated Public Works, which Woolery now leads. Small wonder then, but wonder all the same, that the two most joyous shows in New York right now, the two most engaged with questions of community and duty and care, have this shared maternity.If “As You Like It” succeeds as entertainment — and it does, fluently, enough to make you wonder if Shakespeare in the Park should stick to comedies and musicals and maybe the occasional romance — it articulates and answers graver concerns. There is a persistent fear in American politics that to grant freedom is to invite anarchy. “As You Like It” offers another possibility. There is no rule of law in the Forest of Arden. But rather than descend into riot, its inhabitants practice mutual aid. They live in harmony, figuratively and — when De Haas swoops over and around the melody — literally.This confirms Woolery and Taub’s adaptation as a kind of thought experiment: What might happen if a community were free to determine its own best principles and practices? Because “As You Like It” swells its cast with the members of partner organizations — Domestic Workers United, Military Resilience Foundation and Children’s Aid, among them — the show is also proof of concept. There is hierarchy here, of course. The direction is by Woolery alone and the folks with Equity cards occupy the prime roles. (To put the lie to Taub’s lyrics, somebody’s a pro.)But if the theater were really made welcoming and accessible to all, this is what it might manifest — a stage bursting with performers diverse in age, race, size, habit and circumstance, an audience distributed across a similar spectrum. “As You Like It” offers that rare thing — a New York theater that looks like the city itself and feels like a promise of what the city, at its best, could be.What a feat that is. And what a gift. So go ahead. Wait in line and then walk to the theater through the canopy of trees. Shelter here awhile.As You Like ItThrough Sept. 11 at the Delacorte Theater, Manhattan; publictheater.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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      With ‘As You Like It,’ Public Works Aims for a Reflection of Humanity

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      The musical adaptation, part of Free Shakespeare in the Park, is a remounting of an acclaimed production that had a short run in 2017.Eric Pierre, a pastor who teaches fifth-grade English in the Bronx, has taken up an additional title this summer: royal duke. At least that’s the role he’s playing onstage in the Public Works production of “As You Like It.”He’s one of dozens of community members, ages 7 to 81 and from all five boroughs, performing alongside several professional actors in the 90-minute musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy. The show, now in previews, is set to open on Tuesday at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.Pierre plays the cruel Duke Frederick, who banishes his brother, among others, to the Forest of Arden in this tale of camouflage, love and self discovery.The role was not a natural fit for Pierre, who described the difficulty of channeling his nefarious character and trying to identify the pain associated with his quest for power. “We all have a Duke Fred inside of us,” said Pierre, 49, who, through his Public Works performances, has been able to join Equity, the professional actors’ union.The show’s composer and lyricist Shaina Taub, center, also stars as Jaques.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThis production, a remounting of an acclaimed one that ran in 2017, is part of the Public Theater’s Public Works program, which has produced streamlined and musicalized versions of works — like “The Tempest” in 2013 and “Hercules” in 2019 — that feature amateur performers from eight partner groups, including the Fortune Society and Children’s Aid Society. These productions usually have a short run in September after the regular season of Shakespeare in the Park. But this one was scheduled to have a longer run during the summer of 2020, before being delayed by the pandemic. Now, it is finally onstage, through Sept. 11, as Public Works celebrates its 10th anniversary.Laurie Woolery, the director of the show and Public Works, called the diverse experiences and authenticity of the community cast members their secret sauce.“Theater is a reflection of humanity,” Woolery said, “and if we only reflect a portion of humanity, we aren’t doing our job as cultural workers and citizen artists. We need to be speaking to the world that we’re living in — and that includes everybody.”As the musical begins, families of twos and threes — made up of the community performers — walk on a stage filled with cherry blossom trees and a bridge illuminated by a violet-purple light. Shaina Taub, the show’s composer and lyricist, also appears onstage as an inquisitive yet cynical Jaques who provides a bird’s-eye view and additional context for audience members. As she sings “All the World’s a Stage,” her character contemplates the journeys of the young lovers Orlando and Rosalind (played by Ato Blankson-Wood and Rebecca Naomi Jones, well-known professional actors returning to the roles they played in the 2017 production) to their authentic selves as they shed their disguises.“A process of healing and growth is letting go of all those expectations of the role you’re supposed to play,” Taub said.Ato Blankson-Wood as Orlando, fighting a lion in the Forest of Arden.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe musical drives home themes of love and optimism, a message especially important amid social division, disease and unrest, Taub said.“Still, we’re going to get together and sing and dance on the stage of the Delacorte,” she added. “Still, we’re going to show up every day and tell the story and be kind to each other. It really feels like this beautiful act of resistance.”One of the other community performers, Lori Brown-Niang, who has also obtained an Equity card, has built a second family with Public Works over the last decade. She said she remembered feeling relieved when women from Domestic Workers United, a partner organization that uplifts and mobilizes domestic workers of color, watched over her young son, JonPaul Niang, as she rehearsed her speaking roles. In other instances, her son, whom she described as a “good mover,” worked with older cast members on the dance moves and continued rehearsals in their Bronx backyard.“Are we doing this?” Brown-Niang recalled having asked her son. “Yes, Mommy, we have to get used to singing and dancing outside.”In “As You Like It,” Brown-Niang and her son, now an 18-year-old Hostos Community College sophomore, are working together as puppeteers steering the head and front leg of a lion who challenges Orlando in the Forest of Arden.“It’s been a blessing to be able to raise my son, as a single mother, in this community,” she said.Nestor Eversley joined Public Works this year as a member of the Fortune Society, a partner organization that helps the formerly incarcerated re-enter society. Eversley, who was incarcerated for 17 years, became interested in the Public Works program after watching its 2019 production of “Hercules” and said he wondered what it would feel like to step onstage. (He admits underestimating the time commitment for rehearsals.)“In the streets, you have to be defensive, watch your back, all that kind of stuff,” Eversley said. “Here, it’s a different world.”In a pristine white suit, Eversley emerges as an older version of Orlando, marrying an older version of Rosalind. The two walk unified, showing off their defiant, timeless love, below a decorative arch.In the final number, the stage is bathed in a rainbow of colors, with cast members swaying while singing “Still I Will Love.” It’s a lively celebration and testament to the power of community strength and devotion.“Hopefully people leave the theater with their hearts a little more open,” Woolery said. More

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      Younger Than It Looks, but No More Diverse: France’s Top Theater Prize

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      At the Molières, France’s equivalent of the Tony Awards, commercial and publicly funded productions seem to inhabit different worlds.PARIS — Four hundred years after his birth, the playwright Molière is being feted in France this year, and the theater awards that bear his name couldn’t pass up the chance to participate. The Molières, France’s equivalent of the Tony Awards, have jokingly renamed their yearly bash — set for May 30 — the 400th ceremony.Yet in truth, the Molières are a spring chicken compared with similar theater awards around the world. They were founded only in 1987, four decades after the Tonys; their initiator was the producer Georges Cravenne, who had already created the Césars, the French film awards, in 1976.And their history has been anything but smooth. The Molières were designed to bridge the gap between two opposing production models: publicly funded stagings on the one hand and private ventures on the other. The distinction has long structured French theater and shaped its aesthetics. “Public theater,” which is largely funded by the culture ministry and local authorities, prides itself on presenting more experimental, cerebral fare than privately owned venues.Ahead of the 2012 ceremony, however, representatives of over two dozen commercial venues walked out of the Molières, arguing that the ceremony favored the publicly funded sector and didn’t sufficiently account for their popularity with audiences. It returned only in 2014, under new leadership.This year’s nominations suggest the balance remains precarious. There are separate prizes for public and privately funded productions in several of the top categories, including best production and the acting awards, with different criteria. To be eligible, private-sector shows must have been performed at least 60 times between January 2020 and March 2022, whereas half that number of performances is enough for public-sector nominees. The winners are then voted on by members of the Molières’ Academy, whose names aren’t public.The outcome of this process can be puzzling. It rarely reflects critical consensus, perhaps because many well-reviewed productions don’t even qualify for consideration, and it favors star-led shows. The acting categories, especially, are dominated by acting veterans and celebrities like the singer Vanessa Paradis, who this year earned a best private-sector actress nomination for her stage debut, in “Maman” by Samuel Benchetrit.The Molières also appear utterly unconcerned about their lack of diversity. As early as 2016, the French collective “Decolonizing the Arts” pointed out that there wasn’t a single person of color among the acting nominees. Two years later, the Black author and director Gerty Dambury publicly called for a “non-racist Molières ceremony.” The message has fallen on deaf ears: This year, the acting and directing categories are almost uniformly white again, with the exception of one performer of Algerian descent, Kamel Isker.Jordi Le Bolloc’h as Jack Mancini and Anne-Sophie Picard as Élisa in “The Race of Giants” at the Théâtre des Béliers Parisiens.Alejandro GuerreroIf you are in the market for a white-savior narrative, on the other hand, the Molières have some options. One of the top shows in the private-sector categories this year is “Lawrence of Arabia,” playing at the Théâtre du Gymnase Marie-Bell through May 22. Like the 1962 film of the same name, it was inspired by the life of the British archaeologist and colonial administrator T.E. Lawrence, who played a role in the Arab Revolt throughout the Ottoman Empire during World War I. (The film isn’t mentioned in the show’s credits, despite obvious parallels.)Eric Bouvron and Benjamin Penamaria have crafted a zippy, low-tech stage biography, whose central highlight is live music, with two musicians and a singer onstage throughout. The artistic team clearly came to this story with good intentions. The Sykes-Picot Agreement, a secret 1916 treaty that outlined how the Ottoman lands would be divided between France and the United Kingdom, is explained and denounced. As in the film, Lawrence is made aware of the plan late, and disagrees with it.Yet this “Lawrence of Arabia” doesn’t engage with the problems involved in representing Arab history and culture through the eyes of a British colonial-era hero. While the show includes some dialogue in Arabic, the frequent use of “Allahu akbar” as a war cry plays into Muslim caricatures, and a faux-“Oriental” dance is a low point.As the central character, Lawrence is depicted as a master strategist, without whom Arab leaders wouldn’t have accomplished much. Lawrence’s close Arab friend, Daoum, speaks in cringeworthy pidgin French that highlights his lack of education and manners, and follows Lawrence like an over-excited puppy.It is difficult to understand why anyone would want to reaffirm these dated perspectives today, but “Lawrence of Arabia” is in many ways typical of the production style favored in France’s private sector. Its storytelling is relentlessly upbeat and fast-paced, with regular visual jokes and puns; the characters are brightly captured, yet often one-dimensional.The main goal, clearly, is entertainment, and two of the other nominees for best private-sector production are made of the same cloth: “The Race of Giants,” written and directed by Mélody Mourey, and Léna Bréban’s production of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.”At the Théâtre des Béliers Parisiens, “The Race of Giants” (through May 29) dives into the 20th-century space race, efficiently weaving together history and fiction. Mourey invents a brilliant yet troubled astronaut, Jack Mancini, who makes it to NASA in the 1960s — only to be betrayed by a secret Soviet agent. The production makes inventive use of video and very few props, which allows for fast transitions and jumps back and forth in time.Jordi Le Bolloc’h makes for an energetic loose cannon as Mancini, but as in “Lawrence of Arabia,” the female characters — ditsy wives and flirty, drunken bar visitors, mainly — take a back seat to the lives of men, with the exception of Jack’s headstrong wife, Élisa.Barbara Schultz, left, as Rosalind and Ariane Mourier as Celia in “As You Like It” at the Théâtre de la Pépinière.François FontyFor feel-good comedy, “As You Like It,” at the Théâtre de la Pépinière through April 30, remains the best ticket in town. Bréban, who staged the first post-lockdown show in France — at a retirement home — in 2020, has been going from strength to strength recently. This winter, she briskly led members of the Comédie-Française in an adaptation of Hector Malot’s 1878 novel, “Sans Famille.”“As You Like It” is rarely performed in France, in part because its brand of pastoral fantasy isn’t easy to transpose, but the translator Pierre-Alain Leleu has provided this production with a brilliantly witty French rendition. Bréban, for her part, has a gift for instilling an exhilarating sense of collective rhythm in her actors. There isn’t a dull moment in her Forest of Arden; the relationship between the cousins Rosalind (Barbara Schulz) and Celia (Ariane Mourier) is especially loving and zany.“As You Like It” is nominated in several private-sector categories, but Bréban’s career shows that the distinction between private and publicly funded theater isn’t as clear-cut as it was in the past. Her ability to go from the Comédie-Française, a prestigious public institution, to the smaller Théâtre de la Pépinière with the same level of success suggests that the audiences for each are not so different. The Molières may not have found a happy medium yet, but some of its nominees are leading the way.Lawrence d’Arabie. Directed by Éric Bouvron. Théâtre du Gymnase Marie-Bell, through May 22.La Course Des Géants. Directed by Mélody Mourey. Théâtre des Béliers Parisiens, through May 29.Comme Il Vous Plaira. Directed by Léna Bréban. Théâtre de la Pépinière, through April 30. More

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      Danai Gurira Will Star as Richard III at Shakespeare in the Park

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      The actress, known for “The Walking Dead” and “Black Panther,” will headline a return to semi-normal for the annual festival, which will also present “As You Like It.”The Public Theater, anticipating a semi-normal summer this year, is planning two full-scale productions for Free Shakespeare in the Park, including a run of “Richard III” starring Danai Gurira in the title role.The annual festival, ordinarily a highlight of summer in New York, took place via radio in 2020 (the play was “Richard II”), and then last year featured a single, small-cast show before a reduced-capacity audience (it was called “Merry Wives” — even the title was abbreviated) as the theater tried to adapt to shifting safety protocols necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic.Both pivots won praise, but this summer the Public is ready to go big again, with a two-show season and full-capacity audiences. “Richard III” will feature a cast of about two dozen, and it will be followed by a reprise of the Public’s 2017 production of “As You Like It,” which, by featuring New Yorkers from all five boroughs alongside professional actors, will have a cast of several hundred.“Last summer was a lifesaver, and this summer is going to be a huge shot of energy,” Oskar Eustis, the Public’s ebullient artistic director, pledged in an interview. “We are planning to have a full summer and to produce in as large and vibrant a scale as we ever have.”Of course, the pandemic’s not over, and there will be rules. At the moment, the Public is still planning to require patrons to show proof of vaccination, including a booster shot for those who are eligible, and to require mask wearing by patrons. Also, Eustis said the goal will be to keep both productions short enough that they can be performed without an intermission, which means some serious trimming for “Richard III,” originally one of Shakespeare’s longest plays.The production of “Richard III” will be directed by Robert O’Hara (“Slave Play”), who is no stranger to trimming — his halved production of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” is now running at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theater downtown.Eustis said that he and O’Hara chose “Richard III” because it has not been seen at Shakespeare in the Park for many years, and because it felt relevant.“Let’s just say that ‘Richard III’ is the artistic work that for the first time really examined a political figure who utterly committed to the big lie — whose entire career is based on telling blatant falsehoods and somehow getting away with it,” Eustis said. “The idea that showmanship, devoid of content, has become a powerful political force makes it very germane for this moment.”Gurira, Eustis said, was an obvious choice to star: Best known for “The Walking Dead” and “Black Panther,” she is also an accomplished playwright (“Eclipsed”), a member of the Public’s board and a Shakespeare in the Park alumna (“Measure for Measure”).“She is a great actress who has become super-famous without people necessarily seeing the work she’s greatest at,” Eustis said. “Richard III is a spectacularly theatrical and rich character to play, and somebody with her ferocity and intelligence is going to make a spectacular Richard.”Darius de Haas, center, as a banished duke with a welcoming message in the 2017 Public Works production of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAnd what will it mean to have a woman play Richard? “We are not going to re-gender the role, but what that means exactly we won’t know until we’re doing run-throughs,” Eustis said. “I know where we’re starting, but that doesn’t mean we know where we’re ending.”“Richard III” has been staged at Shakespeare in the Park four times previously, most recently in 1990, starring Denzel Washington.This summer’s production of “As You Like It” is a remounting of a production that had a short run in 2017, staged as part of the theater’s Public Works program, which integrates amateur performers from throughout New York City into musical adaptations of Shakespeare plays. In the years since it was created at the Public, this adaptation has been staged 35 times in school, community and professional theaters, including at the Dallas Theater Center, Seattle Repertory Theater, and the National Theater in London. The Public had hoped to give it a full run in 2020, but the pandemic prevented that.This “As You Like It” was adapted by Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery; Taub wrote the music and lyrics, and Woolery is the director, with choreography by Sonya Tayeh (“Moulin Rouge!”). As with the earlier version, this summer’s production will feature Darius de Haas, Joel Perez and Taub.The dates for the two productions, as well as the full casts, will be announced later.Shakespeare in the Park has since 1962 been staged at the 1,830-seat Delacorte Theater in Central Park, and last week the city Landmarks Preservation Commission approved plans for a $77 million renovation of the theater. Construction is expected to begin this fall, after the summer season ends; Eustis said that he is hopeful that construction can be phased and contained to off-season periods, so that Shakespeare in the Park can continue without further interruptions. More