As You Like It

Well, Schlub is back from his Thanksgiving vacation, which involved a trip up 95 with about 750,000 of my closest friends, turning the normal 3 hour drive to see my brother, Piney Schlub, into an 8 hour one. Eventful, it was, including a fistfight between Mrs. Schlub and a McDonald's manager. Film at 11.

Made it back in time to see Shakespeare Theater's production of "As You Like it" on Friday night. Oh boy, classic comedy with the best of Shakespeare's soliliquoys, that "7 Ages of Man" rap, so Schlub was all a'twitter. We met one of the cast members, Charles Francis Murphy, getting on the elevator from the parking garage. How did we know he was a cast member? He asked if we were going to the play, betrayed, no doubt, by the fact we had both taken showers, and then said he was in it. "Ah," Schlub is pleased, "what part?" "Ensemble," he replied. Not the whole ensemble, of course, member thereof. We would know hm because he would be wearing a silver suit in the opening scene. And he was, allowing the Schlub's to nudge people on either side and say, "Hey, we know that guy. He's Charles Francis Murphy. From Carnegie-Mellon, doncha know." That fact was ascertained on the elevator.

And although his role was small, I gotta say that Charles Francis Murphy did a good job with it. He played the banished Duke being banished in a stage setting like the opening of an old silent movie, replete with flickering lights and melodramatic gestures and the sound of an old projector. I'm not kidding, he really did a good job and I predict a succesful career. Then I can nudge others and say, "Charles Francis Murphy. Know the guy."

Thus the play started. The director decided to keep the movie motif, and we were subjected to these scenes where makeup artists and clapboard guys and directors and camera men would mill about with the cast members shortly before action began. Yes, the director yelled "action." A bit odd, but, okay, keeping it relevant, yo, so the youngsters could get hep to this Shakespeare dude. But, then, well, the movie or play or moviethatwasaplay turned into "How the West Was Won," with each scene a different American era. The Forest of Arden became Valley Forge, then we were in the pioneer days, then the Civil War, then the Wild Wild West (where's Doctor Loveless?) then the 1890's and I think we ended up in the Roaring 20's. By that time, I figured the characters were around 200 years old, so not only a comedy but science fiction, to boot.

Most unfortunate was the director's insistence that the characters adapt accents befitting the period portrayed. So, Civil War, suddenly everyone's speaking in a southern drawl so atrocious Scarlett O'Hara would be going, "Huh? What?" I could not understand a word. Bad enough, but when Francesca Faridany, playing Rosalind, turned into Calamity Jane from the "Deadwood" series, well, Schlub slipped into a coma. I was not conscious until the final wedding scene, which was saved by a pretty hilarious Jon K. Reynolds playing Hymen, and everyone resuming an accent I could understand.

Directors, do me a favor, stop trying to make it relevant, yo. You end up making it incomprehensible.

Best scene was Silvius (Aubrey Deeker), Phebe (Anjali Bhimnai), and I think Orlando (John Behlmann) playing a scene like a bunch of Holy Rollers. Not sure of the third member of this little vignette because I was still somewhat lapsed into unconsciousness. Big hint there, director.