Shakespeare’s 400 Year Old Comedy As You Like It is full of mourners. To a greater or lesser extent, all the characters are hopeless losers. They are often closer to crying than laughing, but usually they choose to laugh anyway.
The editors Ellen Parren, Peter van Rooijen and Jan-Paul Buijs (together Circus Treurdier) have seen this well. Normally, this black-comedy side loses out in performances and the corny humour: the confusions and the puns prevail. But in this family adaptation by Circus Treurdier and youth theater group De Toneelmakerij, the loser in everyone is given free rein.
The story is cleverly reduced to a childishly simple plot. Duke’s daughter Rosalinde (Parren) and uneducated poo scooper Orlando (Wart Kamps) are in love. That is against the rules and good order. Frustrated, they flee separately to the forest. There they dress up and pretend to be different from who they think they are. Then comes all the lame mistaken identity, but finally also the discovery that these new roles actually suit them better than the old ones.
Parren in particular lets the tragicomedy come through well. Her Rosalinde is a smart, gruff adolescent with many restrained emotions, which she masks with stoic humour. The Orlando van Kamps is more of a superficial clown. The chemistry between these two figures leaves much to be desired, so the denouement in which they finally find each other does not really touch.
Where the Treurdierian marriage between humor and pain works optimally, is in the subplot with court jester Toetssteen (Peter van Rooijen) and melancholic poet Jacques (Rop Verheijen). These two men also meet in the woods, but there is no question of disguise. They wear their disappointment in life like a well-fitting coat. The difference: the jester expresses his cynicism with bone-dry puns and the poet by means of lamentation. The way in which these two battered souls slowly grow towards each other and prove to be each other’s medicine is touching.
Above all, director Paul Knieriem wanted to make it a family-friendly comedy. Despite the dark edges, there are still plenty of jokes and a happy ending. In addition, there are many modernizations, so that everyone always understands what it is all about. And then there is the music of Wessel Schrik, who is always on stage with a different instrument in various exuberant supporting roles. Stumbling, lost and bewildered (stoned), he here plays the real, disruptive role of a jester.
As you like it
Theater
★★★ renvers
By William Shakespeare, by Circus Treurdier and De Toneelmakerij, directed by Paul Knieriem, with Ellen Parren, Wart Kamps, Peter van Rooijen and Rop Verheijen, among others.
16-10, International Theater Amsterdam. Tour up to and including 8/1.