{"id":2343,"date":"2014-07-26T07:14:58","date_gmt":"2014-07-26T11:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=2343"},"modified":"2014-08-06T07:17:57","modified_gmt":"2014-08-06T11:17:57","slug":"in-summer-all-the-worlds-a-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=2343","title":{"rendered":"In Summer, All the World\u2019s a Stage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Shakespeare<\/a>

Learned Ladies stage set (photo: author)<\/p><\/div>\n

Outdoor theatre has tremendous pleasures\u2014and perils. For once, the sun wasn\u2019t broiling last Saturday when we saw Moliere\u2019s The Learned Ladies<\/em> at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey\u2019s<\/a> outdoor stage (the charming 1932 Greek Theatre at the College of St. Elizabeth). Probably because I had with me the new sun parasol I\u2019d bought in Vancouver! The STNJ does classic comedies in this venue, and the poor actors are always costumed in layer upon layer, wearing wigs\u2014particularly hilarious in this production. It makes you light-headed to look at them.<\/p>\n

Planes routinely take off flying low overhead from the small airport is near the theatre. This year, the players responded by yelling \u201cMaestro!\u201d, a harpsichord would play, they\u2019d do some bouncy minuet steps, and a page would run by with a sign reading \u201cFlying Machine Interval\u201d until the noise subsided. Got a laugh every time.<\/p>\n

I was in Regent\u2019s Park, London, at a performance of The Tempest<\/em> as a real storm approached, frightening the unprepared audience members, and at a performance of Doctor Faustus<\/em> at Wolf Trap, when a giant Washington summer lightning-and-thunder extravaganza broke, just as the devil appeared (nervous laughter). We lived near a tiny outdoor theatre in Arlington, Virginia, where we could push our stroller and lurk near the back if a hasty departure was needed. We saw a sweet production of Carousel<\/em> there. Baby slept.<\/p>\n

Shakespeare is a staple of summer theaters, though many do history plays, and some do musicals or religious plays. Almost 1.4 million Americans attended an outdoor performance in 2013, according to 67 reporting members of the Institute of Outdoor Theatre (hardly a complete sample).<\/p>\n

\u201cAn evening on the turf (is) real in a way indoor performances are not. We may think we\u2019re distracted when we notice the pair of bunnies seated next to the stage earnestly observing the bipeds, but we\u2019re actually becoming aware of the whole environment in which theater takes place,\u201d said Kelly Kleiman<\/a> in a comment on Chicago\u2019s theater scene. And, you can have fireworks\u2014onstage and off!<\/p>\n

\"fireworks\"<\/a>

(photo: Adam Baker, flickr, cc)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Outdoor theatre has tremendous pleasures\u2014and perils. For once, the sun wasn\u2019t broiling last Saturday when we saw Moliere\u2019s The Learned Ladies at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey\u2019s outdoor stage (the charming 1932 Greek Theatre at the College of St. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"In Summer, All the World\u2019s a Stage, or, Stars Under the Stars","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[104,147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-morgue","category-theater"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-BN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2344,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343\/revisions\/2344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}