THEATER REVIEW / ‘AS YOU LIKE IT’ : Not a Bad Idea : Resetting Shakespeare’s comedy to modern times makes his theme more relevant.

In “As You Like It,” William Shakespeare offered an elegant solution to urban oppression and injustice: Head for the forest.

Three hundred years later, it still doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

And director Kathy Biesinger’s resetting of Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy in modern times, while problematical in some respects, makes his theme of human values reborn amid the natural order all the more relevant.

Even Elizabethan city life had its problems, which Shakespeare incorporated into his unnamed dysfunctional town. The play opens with a society in disarray, where a usurping duke has banished his generous brother (both played by Nicholas Leland), and the agenda of the entire society is now the gratification of its ruling elite’s petty vanities.

When the duke’s niece, the fair Rosalind (Kimberly Olsen), incurs his displeasure, his own daughter (Carrie Barber) follows her in banishment into the forest of Arden.

In hot pursuit is the hot-headed youth Orlando (Sean O’Shea). He is enamored of Rosalind and is similarly dispossessed of his place in the social order--his elder brother (Michael Magne) has denied him the respect and privileges of his noble birthright. At the outset, Orlando is all fiery temper, lashing out with immature, directionless passion.

But freed from the city’s neuroses, Orlando undergoes formative tests of character in the forest--as do all who enter it. He meets Rosalind (disguised as a man), who chides his narcissistic naivete: “You seem the lover of yourself rather than any other.” Rosalind becomes his tutor in the ways of genuine affection, and he learns more about compassion and kindness from the banished duke.

Other characters represent different points of view, juxtaposed in a series of inquiring dialogues taking place in the forest.

A simple shepherdess (ClaireMarie Ghelardi) shows the jester Touchstone (Robert Lagenbucher III) how “the good manners of the court are out of place in the country,” and even Orlando’s errant brother’s newly stimulated senses help him come to his senses. Another shepherdess (Margaret-Erin Easley, in a hysterical performance) becomes infatuated with the disguised Rosalind. And the wandering philosopher Jaques (Michael Rathbone) tries to sort out the meaning of it all in a well-rendered “All the world’s a stage. . . .”

The play develops mainly through broadened perspectives and shifting points of view, rather than fanciful plot devices, which makes it particularly conducive to resetting.

Biesinger’s modern staging effectively drives home the opposition between the city slickers and the forest dwellers--among the amusing touches are the punk-gangster outfits of the evil duke and his henchmen, and a brutal wrestler (Nick Hartog) portrayed as a media-conscious, mink-enshrouded dandy. The musical background subtly pits the urban chic of David Byrne against the elemental purity of the Chieftains.

At times, though, the modernism is distracting, even downright annoying--like the clown Touchstone’s lapses into Elvis, Groucho and Jack Nicholson impersonations. And while the story line slips neatly into contemporary shoes, not nearly enough work has been done with the delivery of Shakespeare’s diction to ease the clash between modern and classical.

Though the production rarely surpasses expectations for a spirited college effort, Shakespeare’s quest for a context to restore compassion, tolerance, and justice in place of urban strife rings loud and clear through the intervening centuries.

Unfortunately, such a context seems increasingly hard to come by.

* WHERE AND WHEN

“As You Like It” will be performed at Santa Barbara City College’s Studio Theatre through May 23. Tickets are $14 (8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays) and $12 (8 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and 2 p.m. Sundays). For reservations or information, call 965-5935.