By now, nearly everyone has heard at least the beginning of that famous Shakespeare quotation: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Endlessly repeated in endless contexts, the words have become immortal for their relevance to every aspect of life — our daily performances catering to our friends, our colleagues, as well as ourselves.
However, the speech is actually just another cynical rant by Jacques, the melancholic loafer in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, opening this weekend at the Schwartz Center. Jacques is one of Shakespeare’s most memorable characters: a sad, depressing creature who keeps Shakespeare’s comedy grounded as it tries to lift off into the lighthearted, silly, naïve world of marriage, love and cross-dressing frivolity. He is a constant reminder of the complexities of Shakespeare’s world: Beneath every superficial reason to love the world is an equally superficial reason to loathe it. Life is all about playing through all seven acts, learning to find the beauty, and the ugly truths, beneath the surface.
But enough with literature class. The Schwartz Center’s production is Shakespeare on stage, which means there are lights, sounds, costume and spoken language to bring those ambiguous themes to life. Whereas Shakespeare’s text provides the ugly truths, the show, helmed by guest director Neal Freeman, promises to deliver the beauty. Set in a late-nineteenth-century world, the Forest of Arden evokes a sense of majesty. The set, designed by Kent Goetz and inspired by the paintings of Gustav Klimt, brings to life a surreal, almost fantastical forest, while the costumes, designed by Sarah Bernstein, range from proper country-bumpkin attire to the obscure, motley garb of Touchstone the clown.
To promote and celebrate the show, the students involved are performing the “Running of the Sheep” on Ho Plaza, which involves taking turns wearing a makeshift sheep costume and wheeling around on a scooter. “There’s a bicycle in the show,” one of the students said, looking to justify the wackiness. “And sheep. So, there you go.”
Still, the Running of the Sheep doesn’t need any justification. As You Like It is already a play about costumes, no matter how silly. Rosalind dresses as Ganymede to woo Orlando, who writes bad poetry in a ludicrous attempt to woo her — well, him, as her, dressed as him. It’s all very silly, and the evening promises to be filled with folly, romance and maybe even a marriage or two.
And, of course, there will be Jacques, the black sheep, riffing away with his melancholy metaphors. If he were on Ho Plaza, I’m sure Jacques would tell the students to keep on scooting, if for no other reason than to make even more nonsense of this surreal, love-sick, theatrical world.