'As You Like It' sparks love at first sight at American Players Theatre

Lindsay Christians, The Cap Times

“As You Like It” is one of Shakespeare’s most quotable plays. To wit:

“Do not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine.”

“Sell when you can: you are not for all markets.” (Zing!)

And of course, “All the world’s a stage,” spoken by the philosopher Jaques. David Daniel, playing the role this summer at American Players Theatre, takes a meaningful pause before the rest of the line: “And all the men and women merely players.”

“As You Like It,” which runs in the Hill Theatre in Spring Green through Oct. 4, is a favorite of APT and companies like it that produce classical theater in open-air settings.

Previous productions here have included a 2010 rendition set in the 1930s (Daniel played the jester Touchstone), a 2018 staging based loosely in the 1870s (Tracy Michelle Arnold took on Jaques) and a 2020 virtual reading to lift our lonely spirits during an isolating summer.

Laura Rook directs Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy with a softer sensibility than some of her predecessors. The fairy-tale feel fits Shakespeare’s wilder flights of fancy.

At the center of this love story beams Samantha Newcomb, who plays wide-eyed, sunny Rosalind. Newcomb lets Rosalind’s discovery of desire wash over her face and fizz through her body. She layers optimism and resilience with a vein of sarcasm, at once innocent and forceful. No wonder Rosalind’s cousin Celia (Sola Thompson, clearly enjoying herself) follows her into banishment.

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