As You Like It
1983: Sam Levene, Herb Roland
This is part of the so-called Shakespeare Collection, a three-play set (including also Romeo and Juliet, 1993 and The Taming of the Shrew, 1988), all of which are filmed versions of stage productions at the Canadian Stratford festival. In the videotape releases, the manufacturing quality is quite poor, with skips and flickers of one sort and another, and a slow-speed color-bleeding image. The DVD is easier to watch.
The performance itself is quite good. The real winning roles are the always-intriguing Rosalind, and Lewis Gordon as Touchstone. The whole production is strong, coherent, and alive with that peculiar electricity that tends to happen in live stage performance more than on film. It’s also cut relatively little, if at all — definitely worth seeing.
Celia: Rosemary Dunsmore
Duke Senior: William Needles
Jacques: Nicholas Pennell
Orlando: Andrew Gillies
Phebe: Mary Haney
Rosalind: Roberta Maxwell
Sylverius: John Jarvis
Touchstone: Lewis Gordon