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GLOBE TO GLOBE: AS YOU LIKE IT, SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE
by Tom Birchenough
The Arts Desk
http://www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/globe-globe-you-it-shakespeares-globe
May 22 2012
UK
Superb Caucasian ensemble playing in Georgia's Forest of Arden
In the Globe to Globe season, the Caucasus is proving as fruitful a
ground as any for new views on old texts. Georgia's Marjanishvili
company, under director Levan Tsuladze, proved the region has a
special style with their version of As You Like It, no less strongly
than Armenia's King John had a couple of days earlier.
Tsuladze emphasised the ensemble nature of the action, using a small
front stage space, and keeping actors on stage in the wings most of
the time. It's played almost as a play within a play, complete with
stage curtain for the court scenes, before we move into the forest,
where the action became distinctly Chekhovian, giving an interesting
melancholic counterpoint to the elements of circus, slapstick, music
(both live, acapella choruses, and recorded) and the like that spoke
so embracingly.
It took itself very lightly, and I felt simply that this cast of 14,
with plenty of doubling (the bad duke being the good duke), were actors
deeply at home with this text. The cross-casting worked outstandingly,
with the Jaques of actress Nata Murvanidze just right, and especially
powerful in interchanges with Adam, also female (Ketevan Tskhakaia),
who brought out an almost erotic quality in his/her interaction with
Orlando (Nika Kuchava). This was no effete youg "juve", but actually a
bit of a dolt who had some growing up to do, and you could understand
why this Orlando won the wrestling.
Ketevan Shatirishvili as Rosalind and Nato Kakhidze as Celia gabbled
at more than 90 words a minute in their scenes that are sometimes
played slowly and portentously.
The cast raced its way through the action with zest, hilarity,
celebration, and often self-conscious campness (Onise Oniani as Le
Beau stole the show whenever onstage). Design was loosely 19th century,
initially in early scenes dominated by greys and white, moving in later
scenes into more vivid colours; an on-stage promptress struggling to
keep the company in the right place was resminiscent most of all of
a train conductress from the good old days of British Rail.
The smiling was there aplenty, but there were sighs too. The closing
weddings were played among leaves - autumn, presumably - exquisitely
crafted artificial ones from Tbilisi. It's an oak forest rather than a
cherry orchard, but Chekhov would have approved. Jaques may have been
briefly bundled away into a cupboard at the play's happy conclusion,
but his view of life - the seven ages soliloquy communicated perfectly
regardless of language understanding, to side-stage characters,
rather than to the audience - spoke strongly. Not everything was
right in the wider sense in this Georgian Arden. But how right it
was to find it on the Globe stage.
by Tom Birchenough
The Arts Desk
http://www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/globe-globe-you-it-shakespeares-globe
May 22 2012
UK
Superb Caucasian ensemble playing in Georgia's Forest of Arden
In the Globe to Globe season, the Caucasus is proving as fruitful a
ground as any for new views on old texts. Georgia's Marjanishvili
company, under director Levan Tsuladze, proved the region has a
special style with their version of As You Like It, no less strongly
than Armenia's King John had a couple of days earlier.
Tsuladze emphasised the ensemble nature of the action, using a small
front stage space, and keeping actors on stage in the wings most of
the time. It's played almost as a play within a play, complete with
stage curtain for the court scenes, before we move into the forest,
where the action became distinctly Chekhovian, giving an interesting
melancholic counterpoint to the elements of circus, slapstick, music
(both live, acapella choruses, and recorded) and the like that spoke
so embracingly.
It took itself very lightly, and I felt simply that this cast of 14,
with plenty of doubling (the bad duke being the good duke), were actors
deeply at home with this text. The cross-casting worked outstandingly,
with the Jaques of actress Nata Murvanidze just right, and especially
powerful in interchanges with Adam, also female (Ketevan Tskhakaia),
who brought out an almost erotic quality in his/her interaction with
Orlando (Nika Kuchava). This was no effete youg "juve", but actually a
bit of a dolt who had some growing up to do, and you could understand
why this Orlando won the wrestling.
Ketevan Shatirishvili as Rosalind and Nato Kakhidze as Celia gabbled
at more than 90 words a minute in their scenes that are sometimes
played slowly and portentously.
The cast raced its way through the action with zest, hilarity,
celebration, and often self-conscious campness (Onise Oniani as Le
Beau stole the show whenever onstage). Design was loosely 19th century,
initially in early scenes dominated by greys and white, moving in later
scenes into more vivid colours; an on-stage promptress struggling to
keep the company in the right place was resminiscent most of all of
a train conductress from the good old days of British Rail.
The smiling was there aplenty, but there were sighs too. The closing
weddings were played among leaves - autumn, presumably - exquisitely
crafted artificial ones from Tbilisi. It's an oak forest rather than a
cherry orchard, but Chekhov would have approved. Jaques may have been
briefly bundled away into a cupboard at the play's happy conclusion,
but his view of life - the seven ages soliloquy communicated perfectly
regardless of language understanding, to side-stage characters,
rather than to the audience - spoke strongly. Not everything was
right in the wider sense in this Georgian Arden. But how right it
was to find it on the Globe stage.