If you saw one of the handful of performances of the Shaina Taub–scored, Laurie Woolery–directed As You Like It at the Delacorte Theater in 2017, you won’t be surprised to learn that the acclaimed Shakespeare in the Park production is making a return engagement. If you didn’t catch the initial run, be merry (to quote one of Taub’s songs); you now have a couple more weeks to make your way to Central Park for this exuberant musical celebration.
Somehow Taub and Woolery pack 21 musical numbers and more than 125 cast members—as is Public Works tradition, the show features nonprofessional community members from all five boroughs of New York City—into a taut 90 minutes while still managing to tell Shakespeare’s tale of the displaced and soon exiled Rosalind (Rebecca Naomi Jones), the displaced and soon exiled Orlando (Ato Blankson-Wood), and all the other outsiders roaming around the Forest of Arden. They have also made a few subtle character tweaks: The shepherd pining for Phoebe (Bianca Edwards) is now Silvia (Brianna Cabrera) instead of Silvius; and Touchstone the jester (Christopher M. Ramirez) falls not for country girl Audrey, but country boy Andy (Jonathan Jordan).
This Arden—which is presided over by Duke Senior (the effervescent Darius de Haas), who welcomes all those who were banished and displaced with a smile and a song—looks like the happiest place in the world. Just look at those adorable puppet deer romping around! (They’re the exceptional, instantly recognizable work of James Ortiz, who created the scene-stealing Milky White in Broadway’s current Into the Woods and the impressively oversize dinosaur and woolly mammoth in last season’s The Skin of Our Teeth revival.) Not even the melancholy philosopher Jaques—played by Taub, a wonderfully wry presence whenever she pops in—can dampen Duke Senior’s enthusiasm for his environment and for his friends. When de Haas leads the ensemble in the joyous, gospel-tinged “In Arden,” you’ll feel like running on stage and grabbing a seat on the picnic blanket. (But please restrain yourself.)
Taub’s score is a marvelously eclectic mix of dare-you-to-sing-along tunes. It’s hard to pick a favorite: perhaps Orlando’s pre-wrestling-match hype song “The Man I’m Supposed to Be,” which Blankson-Wood impressively punctuates with a few push-ups; or “Rosalind, Be Merry,” the heroine’s inner monologue as she chafes at the pleas by cousin Celia (Idania Quezada) to forget about her father’s banishment. Taub’s lyrics “Rosalind, be pleasant/ Rosalind, agree/ Rosalind, just play the girl/ That you’re supposed to be” are a clever and subtle echo of Orlando’s song in the previous scene—though he’s envisioning his destiny, and she’s decrying a female stereotype.
I dare you not to be utterly charmed by “Will U Be My Bride,” a boyband bop sung by Orlando with parody-perfect Velveeta-style lyrics (“Girl you got no flaws or sin/ Are you a doll or a person, Rosalind?”) as a quartet of white-clad dancers move in sync behind him. And if you don’t get a little misty during the wedding ballad, “Still I Will Love”—or during the contemplative and charming “All the World’s a Stage” (“How do you make the magic real?” Jaques muses)—check your tear ducts.
As You Like It opened Aug. 30, 2022, at the Delacorte Theater and runs through Sept. 11. Tickets and information: publictheater.org
