Photo courtesy of J. Stubbs Photography (https://jstubbsphotographyvb.com/)

*Note: As per the performance eligibility requirements laid out here, this production is not up for HRACT Award consideration.*

It has been a year full of Shakespeare-adjacent plays for us, from “Something Rotten” to “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged (revised) (again)”, so it seemed only proper that we once again expose our limited knowledge of the Bard by putting another likely underinformed review out into the world, more importantly than usual with the comment feature turned off (you’re welcome).  Just know that we will be much more fully informed on the sequel play-within-a-play in “As You Love It” after we see the O.G. “As You Like It” at LTN as part of the 2025-26 season, at which time we will likely have many “a-ha” moments that we will not come back and edit into this review.  Just know that we know that you know that we don’t know what we don’t know. 

With that serving as a disclaimer, we were overjoyed that the play “As You Love It”, a new comedy written by Adam Kraar and playing for the next couple of weekends at Zeider’s American Dream Theater, does not gate-keep to only be enjoyed by Swan-of-Avon-heads.  While making some references to various Shakespeare plays, it is not to the point that you feel left out or that you are missing something important (unlike the current string of Marvel movies, where I feel like I need to pause and read like twelve Wikipedia articles to make it through). 

No, “As You Love It” stands on its own as a fun little comedy based around a literary hoax perpetrated in the early 1900s by our protagonist Lydia Langtree, an aspiring poet struggling to be taken seriously by her father Claypool, an antiquarian (a new word for me – someone who deals in rare books and other old artifacts).  In the first scene, we learn that Claypool, who has fallen on hard times, luckily has come to a deal to merge his business with another, more successful one run by young Bartholemew Callow – the rub being that Lydia must marry the smitten Callow.  Lydia, both uninterested in Callow and perhaps not even on that team (if you get my drift), realizes she needs to come up with a different path for her father to get out of his money troubles – and so begins “finding” pieces of a long-lost sequel to “As You Like It” written by William Shakespeare himself!  What a find.  Of course, in true Shakespeare-style, any lies weaved at the beginning of the show will slowly unravel… the only question being how? 

Lydia is played by Margo von Buseck, who we saw in last year’s HRACT Award-winner “Indecent”.  Von Buseck does a wonderful job navigating the audience through their character’s mind, with many asides providing us with total access to their world full of metaphors.  Jody O’Neil capably handles the role of Claypool, and he and the entire cast over-act their way through the group scenes, adding to the hilarity of the script.  Some of Kraar’s best one-liners are saved for Lydia’s mom Eloise, and Alana Dodds Sharp is the perfect choice for delivering them, from “if only we could collect rent from the mice” to “she’s not going to marry a man for his fingernails”.  Janae Thompson pulls off Lydia’s snarky sister Cleopatra with ease.  And Indya Ann Jackson has a tough task, needing to come across as the talented actress Claire Cummings on a stage full of talented people playing things other than actresses.  Jackson, however, has a way of delivering a line with such emotion and strutting around the stage with such confidence that you will absolutely believe her in this role.

Our favorite parts of the show were the well-developed and well-executed moments of physical comedy that were interspersed through the show – all of which were nicely put together and didn’t feel forced, a credit to director Maryanne Kiley (also of “Indecent” fame).  It helped Kiley that she had access to a talented cache of character actors and actresses rounding out her ensemble.  We loved Greg Dragas’s awkward attempts as Bartholemew Callow to find a pose most intriguing to Lydia.  We couldn’t stop guffawing at Ron Newman’s ability as Lacklan Must to sniff a paper in at least five different ways, and when he had what can only be described as a “pompous-off” with Dan Cimo’s Shakespeare aficionado-character, you won’t be able to stop laughing either.  Cimo, by the way, plays a few different parts, comedically pushing (yes, pushing) himself across the stage both forwards and backwards, and I said to my wife as we walked to dinner after the show “that guy was funny no matter what he was doing.”  Just a masterful performance.  The same could be said for Anna Sosa’s Clorinda Joy Walker, whose over-the-top performance really comes into its own when she ends up rubbing noses (not a metaphor) with one of Cimo’s characters. 

When the leads and the character actors interact, especially when they act out some of the forged Shakespeare scenes, is when this show really shines.  Kraar does a nice job of matching the spirit of a Shakespearean comedy in those short but delightful scenes.  As the show nears its conclusion and you start to see the similarities between the literary hoax and the show playing out in front of you, you’ll look for that nice button to tie everything up – and you won’t be disappointed.  It’s in the getting to that point that the fun happens – and you’ll learn, as Lydia says, that you’ve got to “live life… as you love it”.