Nosy Parker: We'll Have Our Plays Al Fresco

As You Like It is the one where there are two Dukes and -- no, that's the Tempest -- and one's Dubya, paranoid, obsessed with power and loyalty, and one's Al Gore, living in a forest and wondering what the hell happened. Then there's two brothers -- no, that's Comedy of Errors -- and Oliver is rich, uptight, and self-centered (Howard Schultz, say) and he's given his younger brother Orlando (brash, adventuresome, like a young David Schomer) nothing. Finally, there's two women, cousins: Rosalind is Karenna Gore and Celia is one of the Bush twins, not sure which.

For various reasons. Orlando, Rosalind, and Celia end up in the forest of Arden, where the exiled Duke is hanging out, working on his tan. You expect Orlando and Rosalind to hook up, but she's in disguise (as a MAN, baby!), and instead they work out this deal where Orlando will practice his seductive technique on this guy he's met in the woods so he'll be ready for Rosalind the next time he sees her. Highly dubious. As is Rosalind's choice of Ganymede as a male name, Ganymede being Zeus's boy lover and the name therefore being code for [whisper whisper].

There's like fourteen other love affairs going on, too, which we won't get into. This forest is like Shakespeare's Baskin-Robbin's of Love.

A lot of the credit for Wooden O's As You Like It's entertainment value goes to the cast, which is as strong as any you'd see indoors. Nathan Smith's hotheaded, hunky Orlando and Betsy Schwartz's cleverly beguiling Rosalind lead off, with Lyssa Browne's pampered Celia coming into her own outside the Court's confines. Matthew Ahrens' Oliver doesn't have much time to go from zero-to-almost-hero, but his emotional commitment makes up for it. As the court jester Touchstone, Chad Jennings makes up a delightful fish-out-of-court's-goldfish-bowl drag act.

Director Carys Kresny cast Susanna Burney in the Andy Rooney-esque role of in-forest crank Jacques; except for some awkward pronoun changes, there's no problem -- Burney plays it like her Jacques is suffering from a hangover after a late night at the Wildrose. Less understandable or successful was Kresny's idea to "Brokeback" the script and have Touchstone fall for a male shepherd instead of a shepherdess. Fie on that. It's a rare misstep in an otherwise lucid, highly watchable staging.