The following preview article appeared for As You Like It in a June 2006 edition of the Hackensack County Seat
Shakespeare at the Rec Center
By Alessandra Preziosi
Perhaps the only drawback to Hackensack’s fifth annual Shakespeare in the Park Summer Festival’s June 7 kickoff performance was that it actually wasn’t in the park.
Forced inside the Hackensack Recreation Center by bad weather, the show, which was originally scheduled for Anderson Street Park, was delightful regardless of its basketball court setting. Although the acoustics at times made the Old English difficult to understand, the actors of the Hudson Shakespeare Company put on a very entertaining performance of Shakespeare’s comedy As You Like It.
The festival, sponsored by the city and the Hackensack Cultural Arts Center, will also feature performances of Pericles, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and All’s Well That Ends Well, with shows in various city parks in June, July and August.
For just under two hours, the actors performed the comedy with as much heart and energy as you would expect in a packed theater, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves as well.
The play was an adaptation, described by Director David Sewel as “basically a cropped version without an intermission, where the action is put to the forefront, more like a movie, to fit into a smaller time frame.”
It begins after Duke Frederick has usurped the throne and banished his brother, Duke Senior, to the forest. Frederick has allowed Senior’s daughter, Rosalind, to stay in the royal court because of his own daughter, Celia, who loves Rosalind like a sister.
Oliver inherits his father’s estate, yet refuses to take care of his younger brother Orlando. Orlando challenges and defeats the courts wrestler, where he and Rosalind instantly fall in love. But Orlando flees into the woods to escape Oliver’s wrath. Frederick then changes his mind about Rosalind, banishing her as well. Celia decides to go with her and they run off into the forest, Rosalind disguised as a man and Celia as a peasant girl.
In the forest, under these disguises, the girls run into the likes of Orlando, Oliver, and Duke Senior, as well as a shepherd, Silvius, who is in love with Phoebe, though she falls for Rosalind’s masculine façade. In the end, four couples gather to be married and witness the very amusing unveiling of Rosalind and Celia for who they really are.
“We’re kind of groupies,” said Marietta Urban of Tenafly, who with Barbara Brusco of Hackensack, has attended many showings of “Shakespeare in the Park.”
For more information, call the Hackensack Recreation Department at 201-646-8042.
