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Friday, November 21, 2025
Review: “As You Like It” at Writers Theatre
www.newcitystage.com: The musical version of William Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” now playing at Writers Theatre, is a lot of fun, with foot-tapping tunes and a charismatic cast. But it could have used more Shakespeare.
3 comments:
Emma L
said...
While I do enjoy adaptations, especially musical adaptations of Shakespeare, I feel like when the author mentioned that the production decided to do something different for the “all the world’s a stage” monologue that made me a little upset. To have do As you Like It and not have one of the most popular Shakespeare monologues in it is a little weird to me. I appreciate that they changed it to song, but as the author said, maybe there could have been a combination of the two to make more of an impact. Shakespeare shows when you are not already familiar with them can be incredibly confusing and leave people not knowing what happened. A sign of a good adaptation of Shakespeare is when a majority of the audience leaves with a good understanding of what exactly happened in the show. One of my favorite interpretations of As You Like It was done by the Sandra-Feinstein Gamm theater years ago where they did a few of the roles genderswapped which added to the show. People need to learn that sometimes too much adaptation/change can actually take away from the show rather than add to it.
Why would you try and make shakespeare into a musical. Shakespeare is shakespeare, not that you shouldn’t do new things with it, but I do not think Shakespeare is well served in musical format. I appreciate attempts to relate shakespeare to the modern era and make it more digestable for audiences, but I do think the original text and message must be preserved to some extent. The “All the World’s a Stage” monologue is so famous, and first-time audiences would benefit from getting the cultural context of that monologue and hearing it in its original setting. Removing it altogether just removes the purpose of shakespeare and undermines the point that shakespeare is timeless and adaptable to any time period. I do, however, really like a lot of movies that are loosely based on shakespeare’s plots, so I do think that adapting shakespeare to the point that its so far removed that its almost unrecognizable works. So maybe what I’m saying is that if you’re going to adapt shakespeare, either go all in or do it subtly.
I had no idea that a musical production of Willmain Shakespeare's “As You Like It” was being created. I think it is always interesting to add music to a story that didn’t start with music. At some points, it can knock it out of the park and make the story so much more emotional and connective to the audience, and sometimes it can fall flat and not resonate with the story. I think this is especially hard with Shakespeare, taking a language that is already hard for most people to understand and making it lyrics can be very difficult. I am so excited to hear that it is a fun upbeat show, it does make sense tho that it was noted that “it was lacking Shakespeare” cause how does one turn Shakespeare’s iconic words and put them into song without making fun or having it read as a comedy or a joke.
3 comments:
While I do enjoy adaptations, especially musical adaptations of Shakespeare, I feel like when the author mentioned that the production decided to do something different for the “all the world’s a stage” monologue that made me a little upset. To have do As you Like It and not have one of the most popular Shakespeare monologues in it is a little weird to me. I appreciate that they changed it to song, but as the author said, maybe there could have been a combination of the two to make more of an impact. Shakespeare shows when you are not already familiar with them can be incredibly confusing and leave people not knowing what happened. A sign of a good adaptation of Shakespeare is when a majority of the audience leaves with a good understanding of what exactly happened in the show. One of my favorite interpretations of As You Like It was done by the Sandra-Feinstein Gamm theater years ago where they did a few of the roles genderswapped which added to the show. People need to learn that sometimes too much adaptation/change can actually take away from the show rather than add to it.
Why would you try and make shakespeare into a musical. Shakespeare is shakespeare, not that you shouldn’t do new things with it, but I do not think Shakespeare is well served in musical format. I appreciate attempts to relate shakespeare to the modern era and make it more digestable for audiences, but I do think the original text and message must be preserved to some extent. The “All the World’s a Stage” monologue is so famous, and first-time audiences would benefit from getting the cultural context of that monologue and hearing it in its original setting. Removing it altogether just removes the purpose of shakespeare and undermines the point that shakespeare is timeless and adaptable to any time period. I do, however, really like a lot of movies that are loosely based on shakespeare’s plots, so I do think that adapting shakespeare to the point that its so far removed that its almost unrecognizable works. So maybe what I’m saying is that if you’re going to adapt shakespeare, either go all in or do it subtly.
I had no idea that a musical production of Willmain Shakespeare's “As You Like It” was being created. I think it is always interesting to add music to a story that didn’t start with music. At some points, it can knock it out of the park and make the story so much more emotional and connective to the audience, and sometimes it can fall flat and not resonate with the story. I think this is especially hard with Shakespeare, taking a language that is already hard for most people to understand and making it lyrics can be very difficult. I am so excited to hear that it is a fun upbeat show, it does make sense tho that it was noted that “it was lacking Shakespeare” cause how does one turn Shakespeare’s iconic words and put them into song without making fun or having it read as a comedy or a joke.
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