As he likes it: Director Anand Rajaram shares his inspirations and aspirations for the return of Shakespeare at High Park

After three long years, the summer theatre tradition of watching Shakespeare in High Park is back! 

This summer’s production is the pastoral comedy As You Like It, which embraces and subverts the traditional rules of romance by playfully confusing appearances and exploring sibling rivalry, gender roles, identity, politics and nature. While the sun sets over the canopy of black oak trees at the High Park Amphitheatre, audiences are liable to feel they have been transported to the fictional Forest of Arden, where much of the action takes place.

The production is the directorial debut of Anand Rajaram. Originally from New Delhi and now based in Toronto, Rajaram is a familiar face on television, and has won awards for his theatre performances and original creations. He played his first-ever professional acting role in a Canadian Stage production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and has loved the High Park venue ever since. To direct this production at this venue is a professional and personal milestone and an “absolute dream” come true.

Rajaram’s love of theatre and this summer tradition have tapped into abundant creative inspirations for this production. With four songs in it, As You Like It is Shakespeare’s most musical play, and Rajaram has commissioned local musicians Kiran Ahluwalia, Lacey Hill, Maryem Toller, and Serena Ryder to create original compositions for the production, which are arranged for the production and sung by Belinda Corpuz. And with his background in theatre, mime and puppetry, Rajaram has invited Shadowland Theatre (a company that specializes in outdoor spectacle) to design the set, props and costumes for the show in a vibrant and playful interpretation of the beloved play. The production feels like a cartoon or brightly illustrated picturebook, creating a fresh, unburdened and welcoming visual entryway into the play.  

The show offers everything that audiences love about Shakespeare in the park: an experience that is visual, musical and fast-paced – but consistently playful and light, conjured as it is through creativity which revels in the play’s overlapping pairs of lovers and underscores the play’s themes without heavyhandedness. 

Ahead of the play’s opening night, Rajaram chatted with SesayArts Magazine about his vision for the play, the relatability of Shakespeare’s works to today’s diverse audiences, the value of stories and the importance of letting one’s inner peacock emerge  . . . and shine. 

SM: Let’s start with you. Tell us a little about you and why you chose a life in theatre. Has it been what you wanted it to be?

AR: The first thing I wanted to be when I was a kid was a dog. I was so sad when my parents told me that wasn’t an option. After that, I dreamt of being an astronaut or a judge or other jobs. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t know the work enough to know what they entailed; I was just excited by the stories I would have doing them, based on what I saw on tv and films. 

Then I was enamoured of the idea of living many lifetimes in one. Being an actor, I can’t possibly know the truth of the lives I portray, but by wearing the clothes of another and saying their words to people in their lives in heightened situations, I could possibly experience an aspect of these characters’ emotional lives and how they connected with mine. Some dream of immortality as living forever in one body and life context, but I want immortality in this lifetime by varying my identity to feel the fullness of living.

SM: Shakespeare in High Park is a beloved summer tradition that you’ve been a part of as an actor for many years now. What brought you to this project as a director? What attracts you to this play in particular?

AR: As an actor it’s always been a delight to perform here, so to be invited to direct here has been an absolute dream of an opportunity. As You Like It was the first play I ever worked on in a scene study class in university, so to be directing that show now at this venue, where I booked my first professional job after graduation playing Robin Starvling in Midsummer Night’s Dream feels like Kismet. 

I think this play is very timely, the title suggesting the world “as you would like it to be”, so a meditation on Utopia. We are living in a time where systems are crumbling and paradigms are shifting, which are also central to the plot of the play, but where we are in the middle of the chaos, the play moves to Arden, an idyllic paradise, causing those who fled to reconcile that Utopia is not a place, but a state of being, a frame of mind. It’s very timely we are doing this play now.

SM: I was taken by this part of your quote in the press release: “I’m thrilled to manifest my own creative Utopia this summer…” Would you like to speak to it… how you envisioned your version of utopia, and what audiences can expect to experience?

AR: As the play is about cultivating Utopia in the mind, I set that as a goal for how I would approach the process, examining every aspect of production, from the edit of the play to the wording of casting notices to the intention to create a support, encouraging, creative, collaborative environment. This will, I think, extend to the audience experience, because the freedom they see, in the funny and colourful performances, costumes, and set, will, I hope, encourage them to live more colourfully thereafter. I know that’s a big ask, but I have also been changed by one show or one piece of art, and I hope to do the same for the audience with this production.

SM: One of the remarkable aspects of Shakespeare in High Park is that it makes Shakespearean plays accessible to diverse, contemporary audiences. The diverse casting and your comments in the press release make this seem especially true of As You Like It. Would you like to talk about how modern Toronto audiences will be able to relate to — and even find themselves in — your interpretation of the play?

AR: The Dream in High Park stage is my favourite theatre. I love that it’s in the open air, that it’s pay-what-you-can admission for high quality professional theatre, that people who otherwise don’t go to the theatre will attend plays here, and maybe, most especially, that you can picnic, then watch the show. By having a space where we can eat and drink with family and friends while we watch human foibles on stage and learn from them and that the audience are of all “classes” sitting together, makes this a highly entertaining, vital, democratic venue. 

I am very aware people think Shakespearen text is Olde English (it’s not), that it is outdated in showing the spectrum of human behaviour today (it’s not), that it’s not funny (it is). I have heard critiques that Shakespeare is just another White man, and we don’t need him any more. The first part is debatable since we don’t definitively know who he was; but even so, the quality of perception and poetic exploration of consciousness in the plays makes watching them still a great delight, and for actors, writers, and directors, a fantastic way to learn how to work with text. 

Audiences will see themselves in the characters as much as they do on any other media. The ridiculousness of humanity is captured so incredibly well, it’s impossible not to recognize yourself in the play.

SM: I am excited about the musical aspect of this production! Please tell us more about why you approached local musicians Kiran Ahluwalia, Lacey Hill, Maryem Toller, and Serena Ryder to create original compositions for the song lyrics in the play — compositions which Belinda Corpuz will arrange and perform. Why is this an important element of the story and the utopia that you envision?

AR: The pandemic affected all the performing arts, so when I saw there were songs in this show, I wanted to give exposure to local musicians, help them cross-pollinate audiences. Each of the four songwriters wrote melody lines for songs in the show. Then the incredible Belinda Corpuz arranged them all, with harmonies for the cast to sing with her. 

What has resulted are songs beyond what Belinda or the songwriters would have come up with on their own. The collaboration involved is part of my idea of this being an Utopic exploration, since there are more voices joining in the celebration through their artistic offerings.

SM: I was first introduced to you through an interview that I did with Ins Choi many years ago. You were working together on the Tiger Bamboo Festival at Soulpepper, and he spoke about you, saying “Anand Rajaram is hilarious”. He said it deadpan and emphatically, I remember. Audiences and Twitter followers well know the truth of this. I’m curious to know more about your comedy, which you make seem effortless and natural. How are you able to make ordinary things and difficult topics funny, and what would you like people to know about a career in comedy?

AR: Comedy is hard for people who don’t do comedy. For people who do comedy, it’s work, and it can be challenging, but just being funny is not hard. The hard part is being both funny and relevant. Comedians are like chess players or magicians or politicians or lawyers, thinking many steps ahead of everyone else in order to achieve the desired effect. A consistent career in comedy requires an understanding of people, of status, of relationships, of the tension of silence, of the way groups start out as individuals until comedy or music or sport or some other group experience unites them. 

It’s the most honest artform. You can like or hate any film or sculpture or novel, but when an audience pees their pants laughing, it’s not intellectual, it’s not rational, it’s visceral. Comedy is the only artform that demands that response, and if it doesn’t come, the artist has failed to find their audience. 

If you readers think you are funny, take an improv class, meet others you can start a troupe with, write sketches, do standup, even if it’s not what you want for your career. Exercise that part of your brain because it’s a rare gift to have that power of perception. Even though it feels easy for you, it’s impossible for others. Count it as a significant gift that you have, to make people laugh and bring them joy.

SM: Tell us something about you that is not on your resume and might surprise us?

AR: I am an atheist. I don’t follow any religion, though I find the concepts in religious philosophy fascinating. The strange part though, is I have been “encountering” Goddess Kali repeatedly in the strangest of circumstances for the past 22 years. She represents transcendence. So that’s something.

SM: What question do you wish I had asked you that I didn’t (and what is the answer)?

Our life is one thing and one thing only. It is stories. It is the stories we live and tell, and the stories others tell about us when we are gone. We are stories. And we have the power to write our own as we choose, the same as a video game with an open environment where you can create your own journey, speak or not to anyone, accept or refuse any side quest, risk all or saunter safely. Live your life for the stories you’ll have on your deathbed. They will liberate you.

SM: Complete this sentence: “Peacocks are not just birds. They are …”

AR: Peacocks are not just birds; they are very fancy birds. Make space for all your inner peacock to emerge and strut.

Reserve tickets to As You Like It, running until September 4, 2022, at canadianstage.ca.

© Arpita Ghosal, SesayArts Magazine, 2022