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Big Willie style
By Adam Goldstein
goldstea@mscd.edu

Illustration by Adam Goldstein • goldstea@mscd.edu

The forest of Arden has come to Auraria.
For their first fall production, Metro’s theater department is mounting William Shakespeare’s As You Like It. The play is a whimsical reflection on love, politics and dramatic convention, and it stands out as one of the Bard’s most ambitious comedies.

Though the plot involves a familiar menu of Shakespearean themes (a displaced ruler, love won through labored courting, pastoral bliss), the action’s diverse characters and themes stand out with their sheer variety.

As You Like It boasts the highest number of songs in a Shakespeare play, at least three pairs of star-crossed lovers and a wrestling match.

The comedy throws all these disparate elements into a single rustic setting, turning Elizabethan comedic and stage standards on their head.

From the comedic chaos emerges some of Shakespeare’s most poignant and stirring observations on the natural world and the human condition.

In addition to reflections about friendship, romantic love and the nature of just rule, the characters muse on the role of human beings in an unknowable universe.

“All the world’s a stage,” Jacques observes in Act II. “And all the men and women merely players / They have their exits and their entrances / And one man in his time plays many parts / His acts being seven ages.”

In its wide range of comedic ambitions, the play stays true to its title: There is something here for everyone to appreciate, something to please everyone’s palate.

Metro’s production of As You Like It will run Oct. 5, 6 and 7 at 7:30 p.m. in the Eugena Rawls Courtyard Theater. There will be a performance at 2:30 p.m. on Oct. 8.

For more information, call (303) 556-2296.