Shhh, it's a secret: Here are the few things we can tell you about William Shakespeare’s As You Like It: A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal.
The PuSh presentation relies on the element of surprise, but Crow’s Theatre’s Chris Abraham says it’s “exhilarating” and provokes “deeply exciting” conversations
Expect the unexpected at Cliff Cardinal’s irreverent rendition of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Photo by Dahlia Katz
The PuSh International Performing Arts Festival presents William Shakespeare’s As You Like It: A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal from February 4 to 6 at the York Theatre
LAKOTA-DENE artist Cliff Cardinal’s new work relies so heavily on the element of surprise that no one dares talk too much about it.
Its revelations are so important, in fact, that the Toronto-based Cardinal, who brought his unforgettable solo show Huff to the PuSh Festival in 2016, is reticent to give interviews for William Shakespeare’s As You Like It: A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal.
And so we present to you Crow’s Theatre artistic and general director Chris Abraham, who can speak a little more generally about the show he’s not supposed to talk about. The company commissioned the play and premiered it in October—its first live show in long months of pandemic shutdowns.
But first, a few certainties. As the title explains, this is Cardinal’s provocative take on Shakespeare’s comedy, and it will be unlike any other version you’ve seen. Black comedy and biting social commentary, particularly as it applies to Canada’s treatment of Indigenous people, are going to be part of the irreverent picture.
”I’ve been all over the map in relationship with Shakespeare,” says Abraham, who’s directed Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, and other works at the Stratford Festival, helmed a lauded rendition of Macbeth at Bard on the Beach, and served as Shakespeare consultant on the hit futuristic HBO series Station Eleven, “but I would definitely say this is the most aggressively conceptual rendition of Shakespeare that I’ve ever been involved with.”
Abraham says it all started with an invitation from Crow’s Theatre—Toronto’s esteemed East End arts hub—to Cardinal to take on As You Like It in whatever way he saw fit. As you’ll recall, the play follows Rosalind and her cousin into the Forest of Arden to find Orlando, Rosalind's love. Disguised as a boy shepherd, Rosalind convinces Orlando to woo her under the guise of "curing" him of his love for her. (As a side note, we might as well mention that As You Like It was first published in Shakespeare’s First Folio in 1623—the same rare book that’s on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery right now.)
In that return to the forest, the characters are asked to confront their relationship to the natural world—a theme you can expect Cardinal to pick up on.
But Abraham hints that Cardinal also takes a sharp look at theatre itself. “One of the subjects of Cliff’s play is how centred Shakespeare has been in our theatre in Canada for so long,” he explains. “And one of the aspects of his adaptation is examining why that is and what to do about it, while at the same time speaking to an audience for whom Shakespeare means a lot. That’s the audience he wants to speak to most. Everyone who goes to Bard on the Beach: that’s the audience that should come see it.”
In other words, you may find Cardinal challenging the hypocrisies or double standards of the theatregoing experience.
“One of the things I can say is that the audience should prepare themselves for surprises as well as who they see onstage,” Abraham hints. “Cliff has, as a theatre artist, been interested in the audience’s gaze and their complicity.”
Intrigued? From what Abraham tells us, it’s well worth taking the leap into the unknown to see Cardinal’s “radical retelling” of a classic.
“I’ve rarely had an experience like this at any production we’ve ever presented where audiences allowed themselves to come to the truth…," begins Abraham, stopping himself so as not to divulge spoilers. “It’s been the most rewarding experience of the shows we’ve presented. I think the conversations we were able to create after the show were deeply, deeply exciting—not only about Shakespeare but also about so many practices that we have in theatre. We programmed it for our comeback [after the pandemic] and it was the most exhilarating comeback we could have programmed.” And that's probably all he needs to say.
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