As might be expected under Jonathan Miller's direction, the Gate's new production of Shakespeare's romantic comedy is staged with unusual lucidity. And, as cannot always be guaranteed in productions of the Bard's works with Irish casts, every word is spoken with exemplary clarity of meaning, every gesture and inflection adding nuance and emotion with purpose and dramatic effectiveness.
The court of the corrupt Duke Frederick is dressed as if for Miami Vice or LA Confidential. The court in exile in the Forest of Arden is dressed in tweeds and corduroys. Here are good and evil made visually explicit: the good old times when people did service from a sense of loyalty, and the bad new times when people do service in search of promotion.
But here is no po-faced morality tale, for it is all done with a sense of fun and a zest for comedy. The new court's fool, Touchstone (a most affecting characterisation by Pat Kinevane), is dressed in the evil pin-striped suit, yet offers conniving rustic wisdom and yearns after the old days and lusts after the coy shepherdess Audrey (Helen Norton) with all the guile of a farmer in Lisdoonvarna. When wicked Duke Frederick banishes Rosalind (a wondrously persuasive Donna Dent whether as her romantic self or as the street-wise tyke Ganymede) and Orlando (a hopelessly dashing Mark O'Halloran who nonetheless outsmarts the pugilist gangster Charles) the two would-be lovers can continue their idyllic tryst in the forest, and the worldly wise Celia (a spritely Siobhan Miley) can happily decide to follow them into exile.
Orlando's evil brother Oliver (Mark O'Regan as a slimy selfish conspirator who had hoped the Dubbalin rogue Charles would kill Orlando) can convert happily from dark suit to tweedy garb to follow his true love to the forest, there also to find the bluff old exiled Duke (Alan Barry with a shotgun over his tweedy shoulder) and the world-weary cynical old Jaques (John Kavanagh sighing and railing against the world yet not wholly given over to melancholy), not to mention Johnny Murphy's bucolic Corin, Frank Mackey's lovelorn Silvius and Sonya Kelly's reluctant Phoebe or the equally bucolic Sir Oliver MarText of David O'Brien and the musical antithesis to a barbershop trio of Mal Whyte, Paul Buckley and Jude Sweeney.
It is all great fun and highly entertaining, even if it sags perilously towards the end and even if Bruno Schwengl, whose costume designs are delightful, could have allowed himself less austerity in his settings.
Runs until May 10th. To book phone 01-8744045
