I Don’t Like It, As You Like It!

Director Rajat Kapoor

The brilliance of comedy lies in its script and edgy performances by the actors
Kapoor’s experimentations with Shakespeare s iconic plays is the 3rd in  a series of innovative original  versions with  As You Like It :  a play within a play!

Using English and gibberish and subtle clowning to provoke and examine life issues within the context of staging As You Like,  the remarkable cast throws up perceptive punch lines on perceived definitions of love life and relationships
The thrust and parry of dialogue runs parallel to the issues of self esteem, interpersonal jealousies,  and identities and yet the camaraderie amongst the struggling actors and the failed director is the overriding feature which allows  the audience to exit the theatre  with mixed emotions yet primarily  happy!
‘All The World’s A Stage  and all men and women merely players’ …. and so it begins not with a bang but with a stutter  as clown no 1 takes centre stage to postulate one of Shakespeare’s most profound theories ; there on the play moves into deliciously decadent farce  with the actors fighting for preferred roles and a frustrated director unable to harness  his cast !

Within the riposte and the repartee emerge nuggets of pithy philosophies from the interpretation of a firefly’s life tenure of a day :‘if I was a fire fly I’d shine as bright as my butt would allow’ to the  more intense ‘ Love my beloved and  live for once before I die’! and on love ‘Good housekeeping Isn’t that a definition  of love’ and the endearing finality of ‘ we are clowns…. we move on, we make new memories’

By the end a sense  of easy  familiarity with each character engages ones compassion and  empathy

In the closing lines of the play ‘if all the world is a stage ….where is the prompter’.

By Ila Gupta