As You Like It
As You Like It radiated energy throughout its entire performance. Orlando (Nick Manfredi) and Charles (Zak Houston) wrestled as onlookers cheered from behind a rope held taut by front-row audience members; the jester Touchstone (Sam Arnold) set up a stool beside me and offered popcorn from his hat. Rosalind (Steph Philo) and Celia (Maribel Martinez) train hopped onto a red boxcar. Duke Senior (Martin Kildare) and his downtrodden comrades sung to catchy guitar numbers that made me wish New Swan would release its own Shakespeare soundtrack. The actors themselves appeared to enjoy themselves during the final wedding dance sequence.
The New Swan crew seemed to have as much fun performing as they did in creating the set and music. Green paper “leaves” on which the love-struck Orlando wrote poetry actually read lyrics to “Brave” by Sarah Bareilles, “Hold Up” by Beyoncé, and “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas. Details like these reveal not only a love for the play, but also a love for the theatre that is infectious.
Hamlet
A medieval gloom hovered over the set of New Swan’s Hamlet. Long tapered windows cast skeletal shadows onto the ground. Muted banners hung alongside dimly lit torches. Fog descended upon Hamlet (Zak Houston) as the cloaked specter of his father (Martin Kildare) returned from Purgatory to reveal murder and betrayal. The omission of Fortinbras and his army forced other citizens of Denmark to be the ones answerable to the ghosts of their fellow Danes. Gertrude (Steph Philo) beheld the drowned Ophelia (Maribel Martinez) as Laertes (Nick Manfredi) mourned for both his lost sister and slain father Polonius (Greg Ungar). Rosencrantz (Kelvin M. Rhodes II) and Guildenstern (Kelsey Jenison), having first appeared as lovers with the former twirling the latter into the air, both departed as the executed puppets of the traitor king Claudius (Adrian Alita). Horatio (Grace Morrison), last surviving witness, faced all the hooded ghosts of his homeland at the end, telling their story for the dead and living to hear.
New Swan will return next year with The Tempest and Taming the Shrew.
Author Isis Huang graduated from UCI with a BA in English in 2016 and reviews events for Illuminations and the UCI Shakespeare Center. Photo: Zak Huston and Nick Manfredi wrestle in As You Like It. Photo by Paul Kennedy.