Laughs don’t upstage script in ‘As You Like It’

The Utah Shakespearean Festival's "As You Like It" is slowly seductive; the kind of show that takes a while to take flight and then soars.

Best to keep the summary of this beautifully ridiculous story brief: Some royals run for their lives from the court into the woods, where they find romance, profound philosophy, gender confusion and a lot of weird people.

Director David Darlow's attention to text and character gives credulity and payoff to the tale's outrageous twists. There are plenty of laughs -- verbal and physical -- but what we come away with is the airy, floating feeling of first love. Darlow doesn't sacrifice substance for yuks. He's inventive with the script, but never upstages it.

It's difficult to imagine a more captivating female lead player than Melinda Parrett as the love sick Rosalind. You easily can see why the young Orlando (the likable Quinn Mattfeld) would be bewitched by her. Parrett moves with a dancer's command of body line. She effortlessly communicates Rosalind's determination to win her man. And, while getting us to take her character's wants very seriously, Parrett demonstrates dead-on comic timing.

David Ivers makes for an unusually tongue-in-cheek Jaques, a role that often is presented as a humorless, self-destructive depressant. Ivers kids the melancholy but stays in character. His Jaques is an intellectual who enjoys -- is downright giddy over -- his recognition of life's meaninglessness. Yet, a couple of poignant moments give evidence of how thoroughly Ivers inhabits the part.

Dan Frezza seems to love the woods as much as his shepherd character Corin says he does. And Roderick Peeples projects such human decency as the banished Duke Senior that you immediately wish him well.

Perhaps too many of the smaller roles are played by actors who seem to have worked hard at making sense of their lines but have not been able to create genuine characters. And the pauses between scenes feel designed for applause. They inhibit the production's acceleration.

Technical values greatly enhance the sense of dreamlike magic. When the evil villain dies (improbably) in the end, and multiple marriage ceremonies (also improbable) dominate the stage, it's near-impossible to not surrender to the evening's spirit of good will.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at DelValle@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.