As You Like It / The Tempest

Sam Mendes has brought his transatlantic collaboration back to the Old Vic for a double helping of Shakespeare. Mendes sees a connection between the two plays – both have usurping brothers at the heart of the drama – but it seems to me to be stretching the point to see a comparison between the two. The Tempest has a controlling force in Prospero, something notably lacking in As You Like It.

Of the two productions, As You Like It is by far the better, not least thanks to the excellent Juliet Rylance as Rosalind, smitten with love from the first and seemingly perpetually on the brink of revealing her deception as Ganymede. It’s a commanding performance, full of swagger, yet with a real feeling for the poetry. She overwhelms Christian Camargo’s Orlando.

There’s also a genuinely funny Jacques from Stephen Dillane – rather than sucking melancholy from song, he finds humour in everything and even finds time to deliver a Bob Dylan impersonation. There’s also a genuinely fine Oliver – generally one of Shakespeare’s most thankless roles – from Edward Bennett and there’s that rarest of beasts, a funny Touchstone – Thomas Sadoski investing the part with some sardonic humour and turning the retorts speech into a quick-fire vaudeville routine. Michael Thomas does fine work as both Dukes – there’s a real feeling of menace from his Duke Frederick in particular.

One of the strengths of Mendes’ production is the way that some of the minor characters get a chance to shine: a courtly Le Beau from Jonathan Lincoln Fried, a droll Corin from Anthony O’Donnell and a brief turn from theatre veteran Alvin Epstein as the drunken parson Oliver Martext, and the old servant Adam, dying at the end of the first half.

The Tempest has an altogether darker hue. Dillane retains the same crumpled academic-gone-to-seed look that he adopted for Jacques but his quietly spoken charms were difficult to pick out from the front of the stalls, nevermind the back row of the circle. Rylance again charms us and there’s some good work once more from O’Donnell and Sadoski as the hapless Stephano and Trinculo – although Ron Cephas Jones looks a bit too elegant to be Caliban.

It doesn’t really catch fire though. Dillane’s understated Prospero is a bit too peripheral to the action and while there’s much to admire in the ensemble playing, Tom Piper’s set design and Mark Bennett’s percussive music, it’s rather in the shade of As You Like It.

– Maxwell Cooter