For outdoor summer Shakespeare companies, the place is the thing.
As usual, William Shakespeare said it best. In “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” the Bard of Avon wrote, “They have measured many a mile to tread a measure with you on this grass.”
At summer outdoor Shakespeare shows, the term “groundlings” — those audience members who crowded the front of the stage, where the cheap seats were, in Shakespeare’s time — could refer to those who actually have to sit on the ground, or on blankets. Others (“chairlings”?) bring lawn chairs. At some shows you might find benches or bleachers, but relaxing on the grass is a big part of the charm of attending these shows.
That appears to be true for the performers as well. Capital Classics’ “Othello,” being performed through Sunday, July 31, on the lawn of the University of St. Joseph in West Hartford, has a multi-platform stage area, but the actors hardly use it. Most of the big speeches, sword fights and ceremonial processions happen within a few feet of the audience. As the play’s injustices and murders pile up, darkness falls in real time. It’s easy to get swept up in these windswept, sun- or moonlit shows.
Summer Shakespeare groups have sprung up in Connecticut like so many blossoming community gardens, and have had remarkable staying power. Capital Classics has been around since 1991, New Haven’s Elm Shakespeare Company since 1995. Connecticut Free Shakespeare has been active in Bridgeport since 2000.
For three decades of the 20th century, Shakespeare in Connecticut mainly meant the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford. The theater, founded in 1955 by John Houseman, staged internationally renowned, star-studded productions of classic works by Shakespeare and others, and became one of the top tourist attractions in the state. It shuffled off this mortal coil, as Shakespeare might say, in the mid-1980s. Scarcely a year has gone by without someone proposing to restore and reopen the theater building.
That landmark may be shuttered, but a slew of small companies around the state have kept the legacy of summer Shakespeare alive in Connecticut. Two of them are even performing outside the old American Shakespeare Theatre building.
Brian McManamon is the new artistic director of the Shakespeare Academy at Stratford. The six-week training program shapes itself into an ensemble repertory company, with all 14 students involved in performances of two different Shakespeare plays. Its headquarters is a large house, known then and now as “The Academy,” that was once part of the American Shakespeare Theatre complex.
One of McManamon’s goals, he said in a phone interview last week, is “to foster an environment where we can bring the spirit of Shakespeare back to this spot. There is such an incredible reverence in this area for the theater that happened back in the day. We don’t want it to become a gravesite. We want to resurrect those passions.” To that end, his production of “Love’s Labour’s Lost” will be staged on the Academy’s front porch, while associate artistic director Tia James will set “Richard III” in a clearing in the woods elsewhere on the American Shakespeare Theatre grounds, a spot which McManamon says is imbued with “the magic of the Housatonic River.”
Rebecca Goodheart, the new producing director at New Haven’s Elm Shakespeare Company, agrees that “it’s important to allow the space you’re in to influence you.”
Goodheart took over the reins of Elm Shakespeare from its founding artistic director James Andreassi and managing director Margie Andreassi last year. The company has drawn crowds of more than 2,000 to single performances — over 30,000 in a given summer.
For her first Elm Shakespeare show, opening in mid-August in Edgerton Park on the New Haven/Hamden border, Goodheart arranged for one of the most respected Shakespeare directors in the country, Tina Packer of Shakespeare & Co. in Lenox, Mass., to stage “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” In a phone interview last week, Goodheart says Packer has become “really interested in the park.” In this “Midsummer,” the palace of Theseus — what Goodheart describes as “the mortal side” of the romantic fantasy — will invoke the Brewster Mansion that once dominated the area, while “on the other side, there’s the forest, where the Greek gods and goddesses come to life. It is the unconscious. It is the place of dreams.”
Bringing Shakespeare outdoors, to large and diverse audiences, leads to interesting creative choices. New York’s Hudson Shakespeare Company, which visits the Stratford Library every summer, has adapted both full-length parts of “Henry IV” into a single performance. Capital Classics has rearranged the five-act “Othello” into twelve scenes, separated by brief violin interludes; an intermission falls after what would ordinarily be Act 3, Scene 3.
Some of this summer’s outdoor Shakespeare events have already happened: Shakespeare on the Sound’s “Hamlet” ended July 3 in Rowayton, Shakespeare on the Green’s “As You Like It” in Stamford closed July 17 and “Edward III,” the first of Flock Theatre’s two Shakespeare productions in the Connecticut College Arboretum, finished July 1.
Here are more to look forward to, in order of their opening dates:
Greater Hartford Shakespeare Festival: “Othello,” directed by Michael Nowicki. Performed by Capital Classics Theatre Company, through July 31 on the grounds of the University of St. Joseph, West Hartford. Admission is $15, $10 for students. Information: 860-231-5555, capitalclassics.org.
Shakespeare in the Arboretum: “The Taming of the Shrew,” performed by the Flock Theatre through July 31 in the Connecticut College Arboretum, Williams Street, New London. $15, $12 students, seniors and active military. Information: 860-443-3119, flocktheatre.org.
Shakespeare in the Parks: “Edward III,” Performed by the Hudson Shakespeare Company 2 p.m. July 30 on the grounds of the Stratford Library, 2203 Main St., Stratford. The same company returns Aug. 27 to perform “Henry IV.” Admission is free. Information: 203-385-4164, stratfordlibrary.org.
Shakespeare Academy at Stratford: “Richard III” and “Love’s Labour’s Lost” presented in repertory by The Jerks of Invention Ensemble, July 30 through Aug. 7 on the on the grounds of the American Shakespeare Theatre, 1850 Elm St., Stratford. Admission is free; donations accepted. Information: shakespeareacademystratford.org.
Shakespeare on the Shoreline: “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” performed by Shakesperience Productions Aug. 3-7 on the Guilford Green, Guilford. Admission is free. Information: shorelinearts.org.
The Little Theatre of Manchester: “Twelfth Night” Aug. 12-28 at Cheney Hall, 17 Hartford Road, Manchester. Not technically “outdoor” Shakespeare, but you can buy box dinners for $8 and “picnic on the patio” before the performance. Information: 860-647-9824, cheneyhall.org.
Connecticut Free Shakespeare: “Taming of the Shrew,” adapted and directed by Ellen Lieberman. Performed Aug. 17-21 on the grounds of the American Shakespeare Theater, 1850 Elm St., Stratford. Admission is free; donations accepted. Information: 203-232-8805, ctfreeshakespeare.org.
Free Summer Shakespeare: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” directed by Tina Packer. Presented by the Elm Shakespeare Company Aug. 18 through Sept. 4 in Edgerton Park, 75 Cliff St., New Haven. Information: 203-392-8882, elmshakespeare.org
