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It takes a wrestling match to make Rosalind's heart go all aflutter over Orlando in what's possibly Shakespeare's most long-winded comedy.
That it's taking part in the grunt and grapple game that similarly gets Orlando's endorphins going speaks volumes about the excitement going on in these would-be lovers' young lives. Especially as the mat Orlando throws himself about on in Gordon Barr's promenade production for this year's Bard In The Botanics season is ever-so slightly soggy due to the light drizzle that briefly delayed this weekend's opening performance.
Barr goes for broke while it stays dry, moving from the opening scene in Duke Frederick's court set beside one of the garden's hothouses, to the Forest of Arden sheltered under a tree, to a flame-lit finale beside a sheltered pagoda.
The trouble is, to get through this extended romcom awash with rustic cross-dressing, one needs to do it with a gallop that the longeurs between locations hinder somewhat.
There are still good things going on here, particularly from Nicole Cooper as a Rosalind who flits between mischievous tomboyishness and a tongue-tied teenage girl with a serious crush. Kirk Bage makes for a stately, somewhat Wildean Jaques, and Beth Marshall doubles up nicely as Madame Le Beau and comely goatherd, Audrey.
Best of all are all too-brief cameos from Ashleigh Kasaboski as smitten shepherdess Phebe and Steven Grawrock as straw-hatted village idiot, William.
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