‘As You Like It’ a Blissful Encounter

Director Michael J. Arndt and a skillful cast render a sprightly, richly comprehensible “As You Like It” for the fifth annual Kingsmen Shakespeare Festival, presented outdoors on the campus of Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. Not only is the production solid in almost every particular, the gorgeous sylvan setting is guaranteed to bliss you out--that is, if you remember your sweater.

Delightfully shifting from demure maiden to roistering youth, Julia Coffey’s Rosalind is a standout. Under threat of death from her tyrant uncle, Duke Frederick (David Himes), Rosalind dons male attire and flees into the Forest of Arden to find her father, (Niall Padden), who also has been banished by his usurping brother. Accompanying Rosalind on her adventure is her fun-loving cousin Celia (K. Leigh Kern) and their court jester Touchstone (Mark Blankfield), a wag whose rapid-fire quips make us feel like we’re watching a Bob Hope and Bing Crosby “Road” picture--which, in a sense, we are.

But Hope and Crosby never had a subplot quite as bizarre as that in Shakespeare’s problematic pastoral, namely, the homoerotic flirtation between the hunky Orlando (Fred Hamel), and Rosalind in full-on drag--bizarre byplay that, for modern audiences, may well vitiate Orlando as a romantic hero.

Then there are Shakespeare’s shortcuts to a happy ending, which include the remarkable--and unmotivated--conversions of the play’s tyrants, not only Duke Frederick, but also Orlando’s murderous older brother Oliver (Edgar Aguirre), both of whom suddenly decide that they’d rather be nice guys after all. Unfortunately, just when the action is at its most improbable, Arndt’s pacing flags, with actors overemphasizing scenes that would probably have been best dashed off and left at that.

But that’s inspecting the gift horse’s molars. Children and adults will enjoy the colorful festivities, which feature Rick Rhodes’ original music, Lolita Ball’s sumptuous costumes and a WWF-caliber wrestling match that is a pure hoot. Madrigal singers entertain before the show, and the grounds open early for picnickers. “As You Like It” plays in repertory with “Hamlet.”

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* “As You Like It,” Outdoors at Cal Lutheran University’s Kingsmen Park, Thousand Oaks. Fridays-Sundays, 8 p.m., July 27-29 and Aug. 3-5. Free festival seating. (805) 493-3455. Running time: 3 hours.