Once you have seen this, you will want to see every role that Patsy Ferran ever plays.
Originally, I had booked to see this production just once. But in Chichester, in November, I was convinced otherwise by a man sitting next to me throughout the three-in-a-day Young Chekhov festival. I took the guy seriously: he’s a total fanatic, who saw 160 plays last year and 135 the year before. He said that this is the best production of As You Like It that he’s ever seen — so good, he need never see another.
And while he raved that this was the best Rosalind he’d seen, he said that Patsy Ferran just stole the show as Celia. Having seen Ferran play Portia in the RSC’s Merchant of Venice last summer, as had this gentleman, I was sold. She was a Portia like none other I’ve seen: young, girlish, and somewhat gangly, which in itself was refreshing, but surpassing all that with such bursting, yet subtle energy and intelligence as to make her utterly compelling and fascinating. She made it Portia’s show, as it should be; but, for some reason, actors playing Portia (as well as Olivia in Twelfth Night) always seem to be inconsequential. I had never really thought of Portia as at all interesting.
Sadly, when I saw this As You Like It the first time, ten days ago, Ferran was ill on the day, replaced by an understudy. The understudy did well, but stayed in Rosalind’s shadow. Just how much Ferran was missed, though, I hadn’t appreciated. I just thought that the efforts to heighten the atmosphere and drama with set and music were interesting, but fell short, and perhaps even got in the way.
“That’s always the best part, when words and lines you’ve never heard before jump out and grab you.”
Last night, however, the whole thing was lifted and transformed by Ferran’s Celia. At the intermission the audience was abuzz, everyone talking about “she”. I interjected a number of times, to ask which “she” they meant, always to get the same response: Oh, Celia, Patsy Ferran, of course!
A good, strong Celia is a necessary complement to Rosalind (most seem to know that, and I’ve seen some good Celia/Rosalind pairs, last summer at Shakespeare’s Globe and last spring with Calgary’s Shakespeare Company), but to see a Celia that dwarfs a fantastic Rosalind is to see the play anew. Not only does Celia drive the action in the first half of the play, she is the essential backdrop against which Rosalind tutors Orlando, and part of the success of the play’s culmination depends on the credibility she brings to her own coupling with Orlando’s older brother.
And as for the rest, the set, music, and other actors? It all turns out to be fantastic, when the main drama itself soars.
The set starts out as a modern open plan office interior in which people work far too hard, with mechanised efficiency. Until the flight to the woods. At that point, all of the lighting, desks, and chairs are hauled up into the air, to dangle in linked chains from the ceiling. Next, singers are lowered and suspended amongst the newly formed ‘trees’, giving voice to an enchanted forest.
And what a voice! The score and libretto are the work of Orlando Gough, who last year transformed the Globe’s King John into something like a modern opera, and whose ten-part chorus enchanted the Almeida’s Bakkhai. Strange that ten days ago I found that his music got in the way at the end, yet yesterday it fit together perfectly, soaring to a joyous climax. Again, I put it down to Ferran.
One nice touch that lit up both nights was when the entire company scrambled out onto the stage on all fours, bleating, dressed in huge, diverse Aran-knit sweaters. Just gorgeous, and very convincing sheep!
Lastly, I heard words last night. That’s always the best part, when words and lines you’ve never heard before jump out and grab you. I think I’ll add a day to my next trip, so as to see this performance again, before it closes.
Reviews and Interviews
Guardian Interview with Patsy Ferran