Central Park, a Forest of Ardor
Charles IsherwoodJune 22, 2012: The Public Theater celebrates 50 years of Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte Theater this summer. By all rights the city’s theater lovers should be showering the company with bouquets, and in a sense they do, day after day, summer after summer, snapping up the free tickets to this cherished New York institution whether the clouds threaten rain or the mosquitoes swarm. In grateful response the Public has given the city its own celebratory gift by mounting an absolutely smashing production of “As You Like It” that exemplifies the virtues of Shakespeare in the Park at its best — warmth, vigor, accessibility and lucidity — and also proves to be the funniest and most rewarding production of this rich, complicated comedy that I have yet seen.
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