Tonight I saw this year’s play from the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival’s Free Shakespeare in the Park. It was a new production of As You Like It presented as a musical. I’ll have to say I was dubious when I thought about a musical version, but I was curious … and it turned out to be great!
It was a pleasant evening, not too cold. The staging was very simple: the court scenes had a plain red curtain supported by 4×4 poles; when they moved to the forest of Arden, they dropped the curtain and the poles became the forest. As is common, the actors played multiple roles in the court and in the forest. For the most part, the acting was very good, as was the singing. Best of all, the songs and music were very good too (which sometimes seems forced when they try to plug some old-style singing into a Shakespeare play). One of the best SF Shakespeare productions I’ve seen in a few years. All in all a very enjoyable evening.
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