Shakespearean Criticism

As You Like It (Vol. 90) | Brendan Lemon (review date 16 August 1999)

Brendan Lemon (review date 16 August 1999)

SOURCE: Lemon, Brendan. “Poised Paltrow Is Jazzed Up.” Financial Times (16 August 1999): 12.

[In the following review, Lemon provides a favorable evaluation of Barry Edelstein's Williamstown Theater Festival rendering of As You Like It, singling out its jazzy, improvisational tone and Gwyneth Paltrow's accomplished Rosalind.]

As You Like It has been through so many permutations of race, class, and gender of late that it comes as something of a relief in Barry Edelstein's straightforward, slightly eccentric production to realise that directorial conceits will be kept to a minimum. The staging, which just completed a brief, hoopla-attended run in Massachusetts, offers only one unusual notion: jazz.

The Charlie Parker-meets-swingtime music, composed by Mark Bennett, is heard so often that it functions less as a score than as a soundtrack. At first, the music serves awkwardly...

[The entire page is 696 words long]

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