@Soho Place, London – until 28 January 2023
As its best, As You Like It is a trip into a parallel world where everything seems easy yet every character confronts their own reality. This is very difficult to pull off, depending on group dynamics and audience faith in this group of people, despite their fantastical temporary existence in the Forest of Arden.
Plenty of productions search fruitlessly for the magic, but Josie Rourke’s version at the new @sohoplace theatre makes it seems effortless. This is greatly helped by the delightful new space, designed by architects Haworth Tompkins as that rare thing – a theatre in the round. The entire audience sits within spitting distance of a stage with four entrance ramps, and a parquet floor in the middle of which sits a piano where Michael Bruce plays his own compositions throughout, frequently becoming an adjunct to the action that whirls around him. Robert Jones’ floor is partially dismantled as the play moves from court to forest, and the wildness of Arden spills over it.
The star of the show is, unusually, played by deaf actor Rose Ayling-Ellis. Supported by subtitles at circle level, she signs her part and delivers a performance of great charm. Her presence, far from seeing an add-on, is integral to Rourke’s interpretation. Not only does she sign with Rosalind (Leah Harvey), but so do other members to one another as everyone tries to communicate across the voids created by love, unrequited, confused, or implied.
Celia is the sensible one, signing her bafflement at Rosalind’s increasingly bizarre plans to court Orlando (Alfred Enoch), while Harvey’s Rosalind is unmoored by love, fully committed to the fantasy forest existence. Harvey’s gender identity – her biography specifies the pronouns ‘they/them’ – adds a further layer of ambiguity to the gender swapped drama, which seems relevant to our times in way that were not apparent until recently.
Jacques is cast in a conventional gender swap, with Martha Plimpton playing her with a beautifully weighted combination of charm, cynicism and sadness. Tom Mison’s Touchstone is also a triumph, a clumsy, loveable jester in real fool’s garments. Enoch as Orlando takes on a world he does not understand with amusing sang-froid. But it is the entire ensemble who generate the energy required to suspend our disbelief, working together in a way that makes us want to be part of their gang.
Rourke’s production makes it clearer than any I have seen that Arden is a place of experimentation, where young people can try out the limits of their sexuality and discover what they truly want, without the consequences that come from being trapped in a hierarchical court system. Everyone is set free and, punctuated by most of Shakespeare’s best songs, the audience leaves feeling that they have travelled without moving an inch and ended up somewhere entirely different.
