17  June – 5 August           

RSC dons its Indiana Jones fedora and goes excavating lost treasures, for this production is by way of a reunion for the cast of ’78, thus offering a unique perspective on the characters from the largely maturing cast. With the relaxed nature and look of a work in progress, in a set design by Ana Inés Jabares-Pita that takes us into the rehearsal room, the feel of the production is of something treasured though not precious. The juxtaposition of older actors playing youthful parts does nowhere jar and where ironies are blatant the director, Omar Elerian, does not try to blur them, but allows the actors to do what they most need and what they are good at, which is to communicate with the audience, who, nothing loath, join in the double make-believe.

What the play loses in youthful gush it makes up for in reflection and by the same token focuses minds on what is being said rather than how it is said. The how is of course mediated by the experience – professional and life – of the actors. So when Geraldine James as Rosalind in the guise of Ganymede, with a boyish, diffident swagger, anatomizes love it comes from somewhere other than youthful fantasy. Again, Malcolm Sinclair, as Orlando, has the air of a surprised and excited divorcee who finds himself back in the dating game. Thus do the ardours of love admit no age related cut-off, which might well have been the observation of Maureen Beattie’s Celia.

James Hayes gives a bit of a turn as Touchstone, meandering about the stage, having some appropriate banter with the audience, reminding us he is, “James Hayes, classical actor”. In one or two moments he displayed a kind of Tommy Cooper insouciance; examining a pile of Orlando’s love poems he picks up one and starts, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day….”, then screws it up and discards it – to the delight of the audience. All it needed was the wide-eyed laugh.

Celia Bannerman shows us a radiantly besotted Phoebe. On seeing Ganymede for the first time she glowed with infatuation, much to the discomfiture of the delightfully befuddled and lovelorn Silvius (David Fielder). He provided a touching moment when momentarily dropping his character to deliver some of his lines of love as himself.

Much of the play suggests the healing balm of nature set against the back-stabbing and unnatural life of Court. Christopher Saul, standing in for an indisposed Oliver Cotton, suggests a Jaques as much curmudgeon as philosopher looking for some proof-positive that Duke Senior had made the right decision in his bucolic sojourn.

Although Hymen does not make an entrance there is a kind of transformation scene at the end where the rehearsal room gives way to the forest as setting for the four marriages and nature seems to gate-crash proceedings. And then I found it strangely moving as the cast, as mature actors playing their younger selves, brought proceedings to a close.

This is a fine and successful experiment in casting which perhaps will never be repeated again.

★★★★☆    Graham Wyles 28 June 2023

Photo credit:  Ellie Kurttz