Some plays lend themselves easily to outdoor performance: the folk-tales of Robin Hood, for example, dramatizations of which you would likely find staged in every British village on festival days during the 15th century. Or Shakespeare, even in sophisticated 16th-century London originally produced in open-air arenas. But realistic 20th-century drama—conceived for enclosed shelters replete with extensive equipment for regulation of temperature, illumination, acoustics and incidental distractions—can present difficulties for modern theaters and audiences.
The 2010 summer theater season in Chicago offers some of every kind, starting at one end of the spectrum with Theatre-Hikes' production of Robin Hood at the North Park Nature Center ( June 26-27; 312-744-5472 ) and the Morton Arboretum ( July 10-31; 630-725-2066 ) . Says director Dan Scurek, "There are many areas of turf grass with small groupings of trees and brush near the hiking trails that will comprise our playing spaces, but we probably won't be interacting much with rocks, statues or water structures. If we were on a private residence and had permission to mingle more with the environment, we might do more, but we don't want to risk damaging anything."
The locale for Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is the fictional kingdom of Illyria, but for First Folio Theatre's production ( July 10-Aug. 8; 630-986-8067 ) , director Michael Goldberg envisions his romantic milieu as India during the 19th-century colonialist era called the "British Raj" by indigenous historians. "We have a great mixed-ethnic cast and some gloriously colorful costumes," said company managing director David Rice. "There are always challenges to building scenery that can withstand the elements and a wardrobe that won't roast the actors on a 90-degree day, but we deal with these factors every year." Company member Nick Sandys added wryly, "The heat and the insects will be particularly appropriate to the setting."
The Journeymen's performance space on the grounds of the Berger Park mansion is technically an indoor venue, but its proximity to the Granville Street beach makes the outdoors an integral part of every production, including playwright Joe Calarco's Shakespeare's R & J ( June 26-Aug. 21; 773-761-3294 ) , a revisionist version of the Elizabethan tragedy premised on a group of Edwardian schoolboys re-enacting Romeo and Juliet in secret. As director Frank Pullen explained, "Calarco goes to the essence of pure theater, proposing just four young men playing all the roles, with no set, or costumes, or period props. After they escape the confines of their 'real' world, though, they create their own outside environments, vocalizing the sound of rain, wind, birds and crickets. These, in turn, harmonize with the actual crash of Lake Michigan waves right outside the playhouse's front door, adding to the magic of the fantasy conjured in the play."
The lofty Deep South mansion whose splendor masks family intrigue in Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest—her "prequel" to The Little Foxes—seems a far reach for the American Players Theatre, nestled into the hills of southwestern Wisconsin near Spring Green ( June 26-Sept. 18; 608-588-2361 ) . Director William Brown is undaunted, however: "We did Night of the Iguana here a few years ago. You might not think Tennessee Williams would survive exposure to nature, but the sultry Wisconsin summer substituted nicely for a Mexican jungle, the music from the offstage cantina could actually emanate from a distance, and Father Shannon could talk with his God under a canopy of real stars. For Another Part of the Forest, the night birds and animals you hear in the surrounding woods are the perfect context for this family of predators."
But the summer's most challenging undertaking may be Oak Park Festival Theatre's ambitious rendering of John Steinbeck's American classic, Of Mice And Men ( June 11-July 10; 708-445-4440 ) , a sprawling fable of male bonding in rural California during the Great Depression, requiring not only barns and bunkhouses, but marshy culverts substantial enough to conceal fugitives from pursuing vigilantes. How does director Belinda Bremner plan to replicate this rough-and-ready ambience within the tidy pastoral confines of Oak Park's Austin Gardens?
"Our wonderful set designer, Aimee Hanyzewski, is building us a turntable, with the stable and hayloft on one side and the bunkhouse, along with the stablehand's room, on the other. And being outdoors means that when George and Slim have a confidential conversation while the other men are playing horseshoes, we can see the game in progress, instead of just hearing offstage noises," said Bremner. "The weed patch—Hanyzewski is working on constructing real reeds and water!—will be placed between two of the park's smaller trees. The men chasing Lennie in the last scene will be scattered over the site with flashlights and lanterns—oh, and we have a special greenroom behind the barn with an intern to mind the 'actor' playing Candy's old dog [ in real life, the canine companion of Stanton Davis, who plays Slim in the show ] to see that he doesn't chase the live rabbits that roam the Gardens."
Last summer was marked by abnormally cool temperatures and copious rain, but all theaters hope for better weather this year. ( Bremner plans to keep "at least one of the very buff ranch-hands shirtless, whenever possible." ) But whatever Mother Nature may hold in store, playgoers can be assured that the show will go on.
