AS YOU LIKE IT RADICAL RETELLING
Edinburgh International Festival
★
“The movement of the piece is clumsy: clichés, borrowed gestures that feel appropriated rather than considered”
We enter a jewel-box theatre. Birds chirp, a troubadour sings. The red drape, gold fringe, and footlights evoke a sense of tradition. But the question lingers: will this truly be a radical retelling? Calling something radical sets expectations.
Shakespeare is always ripe for reinvention; few modern productions dust off the doublet and tights. Most of the chunky medallions on chains look better on drag queens in contemporary theatre than on Hamlet.
Eight minutes late, actor–playwright Cliff Cardinal walks on. Nervous, he tells us he was born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and grew up in Canada. Pine Ridge is one of the poorest areas of the United States. We are not told this.
Cardinal has been asked to do a land acknowledgement – but here, in Scotland? Who are we acknowledging – the Picts? He adds that this acknowledgement contains all the Easter eggs for the performance. We listen carefully.
Except it isn’t really an acknowledgement at all. It’s a stand-up: part confession, mostly provocation. Cardinal admits he dislikes land acknowledgements, calling them pointless. He riffs on stolen land, privilege, and trauma. It feels like rough, unpolished Fringe material. At thirteen minutes, I realise this may not be Shakespeare at all. Perhaps a radical not-telling of As You Like It. I was right.
Fifteen minutes in, someone leaves. The actor notes it. More leave at twenty-five, thirty, and thirty-five minutes. Audience unease grows. Some are thrilled, others distinctly not. This is not the theatre we expected with a proscenium arch. It is certainly not the safe, cathartic theatre space Aristotle once praised.
We are told we are privileged, that our buildings were built with blood. We hear about intergenerational trauma versus wealth, about allies who do nothing, about oil, history, and religion. It is scattershot: fragments, half-thoughts, provocations. He forgets lines, wanders off stage, and re-enters. Each exit or fall out of character is another chance to escape. More do.
By forty minutes, the house lights are cut – perhaps because walk-outs were anticipated. I’m sure they were. The performance begins to feel like a test: who will stay, who will resist?
An older man with a cane tries to leave. He protests that he feels tricked. He has trouble leaving, and Cardinal supporters in the audience shout the audience member down with expletives and “Get Out.” I’m suddenly in that play we read in middle school, where a group condemns and stones one of themselves. You know the one. And I wonder, is this the thing that fixes the atrocities of the past?
Once the old man has gone, Cardinal claims he was frightened of him, and thanks those who defended him, leaving others to be condemned silently. All of this feels staged. Frightened by the old man, the one with the cane who could hardly walk out of the theatre and worked hard to get into it?
More people trickle out. The academic beside me, weary after a day of writing with only one paragraph to show for it, came hoping for Shakespeare. Instead, she left, perhaps to read some at home.
The movement of the piece is clumsy: clichés, borrowed gestures that feel appropriated rather than considered. When the curtain finally rises at Cardinal’s command, it reveals nothing but lighting rigs and boxes. Another contrivance. The performance is Cardinal himself. He tells us there is no As You Like It. That it was all a dupe. That he has never read Shakespeare’s play.
It ends with stories of his family, whom he describes as bad-assed survivors. Aren’t we all? At least we survived this performance.
Reviewing such a show, one is tempted to do as Cardinal did: talk about something else and avoid the task at hand. Crow’s Theatre and Cliff Cardinal’s As You Like It: A Radical Retelling is neither radical nor a retelling nor Shakespeare. The marketing promised Shakespeare with a ruff – classic yet fresh. It is neither. Cardinal himself says, “If you don’t like it, ask for a refund. And don’t tell anyone what happened tonight.”
Perhaps he wants to trick tomorrow’s audience, too. But honesty would have been more radical than misdirection – especially when dealing with such important themes.
My advice? Take the refund. Stay home. Read the Bard. Tell yourself the story you want to hear – and think about how to make the world better.
AS YOU LIKE IT RADICAL RETELLING
Edinburgh International Festival
Reviewed on 20th August 2025 at Church Hill Theatre
by William Shakespeare – The Bard who was not heard. Two can play at Cardinal’s game.
Photography by Dahlia Katz
