This was my one true non-negotiable of the season. As You Like It is my favourite play and the math equation of this cast plus this director meant that the floor for this production was incredibly high. We have a joke around my house that “in Chris we trust”, a shorthand to remind us to have faith in those who have never let us down (we, perhaps, see a bit too much theatre). Chris Abraham has directed texts I don’t care about in genres that don’t do much for me with companies I could take or leave but he never ever completely drops the ball. A Chris Abraham production will be good. It may not be my cup of tea, or as good as I think it could be, but it’ll be good. This is that. It’s good. It’s Chris Abraham directing a Shakespeare text I really love in the best theatre for doing that starring some people who are good at it.

So, now that we’ve established that this is a baseline good production, let’s talk about why it merely sits on that high floor. As You Like It is a fun play with a lot more darkness and depth than it’s usually mined for. This production feels as if Abraham decided to compensate for everyone who’s ever made that mistake. He goes Dark. The court of Duke Frederick is a totalitarian wasteland that evokes The Handmaid’s Tale, The Soviet Union, and myriad other too-recognizable modern hellscapes. Within this regime, every character seems to be suffering, not just those out of favour with the usurping Duke. While this is fertile ground for Steve Ross’ scene-stealing truth-telling fool Touchstone and a believably harsh world to birth Aaron Krohn’s uniquely rough-edged Jaques, it undermines Celia’s sacrifice and Frederick’s complicated love for her that is, to me, the real heart of the play’s first half (the great Sean Arbuckle has less to do here than most good Fredericks).

The brutal setting, most notably, creates a jolting tonal shift as the play careens into lightness in its second half. A seasonal time jump over intermission tries to bridge that cavern but merely serves to muddle the storytelling and make the characters seem as if their abandoned society’s woes are merely out of sight and therefore out of mind (everyone also seems to mysteriously misplace their guns at intermission; such weapons are inappropriate for spring). Which is not to say there aren’t delights in this second half if the cognitive dissonance doesn’t sink you. Sara Farb comes alive as Rosalind once the script is allowed to be a comedy though there’s never much spark between her and Christopher Allen, of whom I’m a great fan in character parts but who never quite settles in as the leading man here. Ron Sexsmith & Thomas Ryder Payne’s music is delightful and some smaller roles like Jessica B Hill’s self-possessed Phoebe and Leon Qin’s hilarious beefcake William are great charmers (insert here another mention of Steve Ross and his all-time-best Touchstone).

Visually uninteresting and abrasively uneven, this As You Like It suffers under the weight of heavy concept in place of granular complexity. But, again, that floor is so very high so I say all this and I also say it’s pretty good.