Highly entertaining and increasingly absurd, Damien Ryan’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It for Queensland Theatre leans into slapstick and silliness even as it speaks to big themes of identity, love, nature and redemption.

Queensland Theatre’s As You Like It. Photo © Brett Boardman

A pastoral romantic comedy that contrasts life in the court with life on the land, As You Like It follows Rosalind, whose aunt has usurped her father’s duchy and now banished her niece as well.

Accompanied by her cousin Celia and the Duchess’ fool, Touchstone, Rosalind disguises herself as a man and seeks refuge in the Forest of Arden where her father, the former Duke, leads an eccentric community of other exiles – including Rosalind’s love, Orlando.

As You Like It concludes with four marriages, and love and desire are key themes of the work. There are some coarse jokes (accompanied by the pelvic thrusting that always seems to be included in modern productions), but Ryan’s adaptation, as much as it is light-hearted and entertaining, also explores sex and death as part of natural cycles.

There is a focus on seasons, with the first half of the...