"As You Like It". Royal Shakespeare Theatre
As You Like It is the most gender-curious of all Shakespeare’s plays. Famously featuring (in its original incarnation) a man acting as a woman disguised as a man pretending to be a woman, it’s been a melting pot for sexual osmosis for centuries. There have been all-male productions where men act as women. There have been gender-blind productions where the limitations of sexual identity are cast aside. And there have been all-female productions where feminist themes rise to the surface like rocks from a receding tide. It’s a revolving jewel, always glinting with something new. You can do whatever you want with it, and its facets will reveal new depths. Maybe that’s what the title means. But I’m not sure it’s ever been done like this. Daniel Evans’s production at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is a deeply personal exploration of queer identity. It’s not just a play: it’s an act of forgiveness, of confrontation, and ultimately of reconciliation. In Evans’s all-male (but most definitely no...
