As with his Twelfth Night four years ago, director Geoffrey Hyland has once again delivered the goods for Maynardville’s annual Shakespeare. His production of As You Like It is cheerful, light-hearted, funny and wholly appropriate for an evening diversion at this open air theatre. It will also go down well with schools, which is a vital constituency here.
Over the years Hyland has found an answer to staging Shakespeare in contemporary South Africa. In particular, when exercising his vision of the play, he does not impinge upon the work. He allows it to speak for itself without forcing too narrow a reading. Instead he uses multiple references as aperçus to the text. The challenge is to keep these cohesive and not shambolic. The fantastical world of As You Like It gives him this license. Thus we have hippy communes in the forests of Arden, African spirits and didgeridoo sounds; intuitive details that are not limitiary but apposite.
Many of the stalwart Maynardville actors are in the current production of The Tempest and Hyland has done well with a youthful cast; refreshing in this undemanding comedy, though some of the over-excited and peculiar squealing sounds from the cast lower the tone.
The night belongs to Guy de Lancey as Jacques, the melancholic traveller, who delivers all his speeches including “All the world’s a stage” with great finesse. Much of the comedy is carried by Mark Elderkin (Touchstone) who deserves to be singled out for his uncanny comic timing, and the subtlety he displays within an over-the-top interpretation of the character.
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The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast heralded the advent of the mega-musical in South Africa. With High School Musical (HSM) the corporate musical comes of age. It is not merely a question of the scale of enterprise, HSM’s very DNA is corporate. Naturally then it is less about theatre and more about Hollywood entertainment.
In the first place, it is an invention of the Disney Corporation with all the financial muscle that comes with that conglomerate. Using a reality television audition show it is packaged from birth. The story board and characters are a calculated result based on marketing appeal and well-worn formulas. Its raison d’etre is to make money by giving people what they have already proven they want to see more of. Based on the Disney Channel’s movie (already in threequel) the full stage version is a global phenomenon with sold out seasons in the United Kingdom , Europe, Australia and more than 40 cities across the United States.
The 11-piece band under the baton of Charl-Johan Lingenfelder and the 32-member South African cast, many of them making their debut, are all in top form and do make one terribly proud.
So, is the critic happy with the phenomenon? W.H. Auden’s satricial poem on the unknown citizen springs to mind: The question is absurd. Had anything been wrong we would certainly have heard.
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