I go to a lot of performances of every kind, and since my job as drama critic of The Wall Street Journal obliges me to cover all Broadway openings, I don’t spend nearly enough time wandering off the beaten path. I wish I did. Especially when it comes to theater, New York is full of good things that don’t get enough attention, and I’m always happy whenever I have a chance to see one of them. Fortunately, I have theatrical friends who keep me informed about such shows, and one of them steered me last Friday to a production of As You Like It that took place in deepest Queens–Astoria, to be exact, a neighborhood richly populated with Greek restaurants.
The play was produced by the Astoria Performing Arts Center, which obviously doesn’t have any money, since it was staged in the round on the floor of a basketball court in a church gymnasium. The audience was small, the set nonexistent, the dress modern, the d