Play speaks to themes of authoritarianism, female power

For its 29th season of Free Shakespeare on the Common, the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company will present the romantic comedy “As You Like It” at the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common from Wednesday, July 23 through Sunday, August 10.

Steven Maler, CSC founding artistic director, will direct the production, bringing this 400-year-old play into the present.

“This play makes sense for our moment,” said Maler, talking by phone a week before rehearsals. “It celebrates love as a conquering force in the face of adversity. An authoritarian has taken over and the rightful leader, along with others, self-exile into a forest and create a new community in harmony with nature and each other. Also, it’s a great comedy, and a female-centric play, which is not always what you find in Shakespeare.”

After the court of her father, Duke Senior, is seized by his power-hungry brother Frederick, Rosalind and her cousin Celia flee in disguise with court fool Touchstone and find refuge in the forest, where they find new freedom, wisdom and mates. Here they encounter another pair of brothers who are at odds: Orlando’s abusive older brother Oliver denies him his small inheritance from their father’s estate and schemes to have him killed in a wrestling match.

Rosalind and Celia meet the victorious Orlando at his match and Orlando and Rosalind fall in love.

Rosalind assumes a male guise and gains agency and power by using her wits to follow her heart. “She’s dispossessed,” said Maler, “and a woman in a male society. Disguised as a man, she educates and tests Orlando in what it means to love.”

Surrounded by the trees on Boston Common, the staging will bring the worlds of court and forest alive with scenic design by Riw Rakkulchon, costumes by Miranda Giurleo and lighting by Eric Southernude.

“Frederick’s court is monochrome, black and white and brutalist,” Maler said, “while the forest is a world of color, ease and flow.”

“As You Like It” includes one of Shakespeare’s great speeches, which, beginning with the line, “All the world’s a stage,” goes on to describe the seven stages of human life. Its wincing wisdom is spoken by Duke Senior’s courtier Jacques, a melancholy misanthrope.

“We’ve got extraordinary actors in these roles who will inhabit Shakespeare’s language. We work word-by-word and then with physicality, costumes and lights. The power of Shakespeare’s plays is the language itself. We harness that power and bring it to life.”

Maler has directed this play twice before. This time, he said, “I’m interested in this community that’s creating its own culture and rules in the face of adversity and authoritarianism. Now is a period of great division in our country. This is a play about people coming together and finding their shared humanity.”

Cast members include Nora Eschenheimer as Rosalind and Michael Underhill as Orlando, memorable as lovers Miranda and Ferdinand in CSC’s award-winning 2021 production of “The Tempest”; as well as CSC favorites John Kuntz as Touchstone, Joshua Olumide as Oliver, Remo Airaldi as shepherd Corin and Jared Troilo as Amiens, an attendant of Duke Senior. Six characters will be performed by members of CSC2, a company of early-career actors.

Performing the dual roles of Duke Senior and Duke Frederick is Maurice Emmanuel Parent, co-founder, actor and producing artistic director of Front Porch Arts Collective, Boston’s premiere Black theater.

“I love that I get to play them both,” Parent said.

“What if these dukes are two sides of the same coin? What are those sides? And then how do I embody each? Shakespeare’s talked a lot about the humors in the body—the brain in our heads and our second brain in our body, our gut. Right now, I’m thinking of Frederick as a totalitarian. He seems almost like Macbeth. Once you gain power, are you constantly terrified that someone’s going to take the power away?”

Parent is asking himself a multitude of questions about both characters. When banished Duke Senior enters the forest, he says “sweet are the uses of adversity.” Parent explained: “He is usurped but not, as far as I can tell, unhappy, in this community of freed people. My challenge is to make a genuine shift between these two people and avoid flat, one-dimensional caricatures.”

Shakespeare has been a constant in the careers of both Parent and Maler, who in October, will direct Verdi’s operatic version of “Macbeth,” another Shakespeare play about power run amok, for Boston Lyric Opera. A resident company member of Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Parent directed its April production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“My study of Shakespeare in graduate school taught me a lot about performing in all types of theater,” Parent said. “I as a Black actor get to play these kings, warlords and deities — it’s just so cool. The stakes are so high.

“And there’s just nothing like saying Shakespeare’s words standing on stage surrounded by nature in the middle of the Common in the middle of the city. Shakespeare’s language is about the heavens and nature and how we’re part of this, from the roots of the earth all the way up to the height of heaven. His characters are always somewhere on this continuum.”

CSC provides accessibility services at all performances: commshakes.org/accessibility

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