Summer plans

1. Involvement in a three-way with greens at the ex-Bobby's Back Door BBQ
2. Sangria at Charanga
3. Fat, grunting swine at Tilden Park

The green room
During the summer season of outdoor theater, all the world's a stage.

By Amir Baghdachi

OF ALL THE fruits that luxuriate and run riot in the Bay Area during summer, the crop of outdoor theater festivals is among the juiciest and most anticipated. Fall, winter, spring, we have none; then all of a sudden in June it seems as if every vacant hillside has sprouted a production of The Taming of the Shrew. You can hardly approach a grove of redwoods without hearing someone, however furtively, intoning a bit of Chekhov. And rightly so. Given the right weather conditions, the prospect of a few hours spent sitting outdoors watching people onstage marry and murder one another in varying combinations has a charm, when accompanied by the proper amenities – fine food, bubbly drinks, a soft blanket (for more on this topic see "Take It Outside") – that can't be easily denied.

In the first place, one's chances of witnessing a great actor are virtually guaranteed: performing outdoors is so arduous, so elemental, and so unpredictable that directors jostle one another every spring to lure the finest talent to their shows. Your outdoor thespian must have not only a voice that can resound across a crowded meadow – and, if necessary, rise above the ruckus of a nearby Brazilian fest or family reunion barbecue – but also a kind of commanding charisma and glamour. With one magnificent gaze, the expert actor must be able to silence the sobbing child, sever the necking teens, rouse the slumbering, and cow those members of the audience who, whether out of the goodness of their hearts or under the influence of a cooler full of beer, attempt to repay the kindness of free admission by providing constant and vigorous words of encouragement.

To this distinguished class of actor belongs the lordly Robert Sicular, our own great Shakespearean who stars this summer in Love's Labour's Lost at the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. Trish Mulholland is another: while best known for her goose-necked and google-eyed comedic roles, this summer she assumes epic gravitas as Mother Courage for Shotgun Players. And if anyone is a sure thing, it's Reid Davis, appearing with Shotgun this summer as well. Compact, exuberant, and built along the lines of a satyr (though lacking in cloven hooves), Davis sticks in the memory as the love-stricken Silvius in an As You Like It some summers back, a performance in which he spent the hour before the show barreling through the audience and bleating out the name of his beloved, while small children mocked his pain. He was so lubriciously slimy as Panderus in last summer's Troilus and Cressida, he stopped just short of leaving a trail.

If great acting alone won't seduce you into attendance, and you're hesitant because the last play you saw featured a man in scuba gear wrestling a refrigerator box for three hours, rest assured that outdoor plays of summer are chosen with no other object than to please you. This exemplifies, in a way, the Bay Area's theatrical ecosystem: the neurotic, claustrophobic plays of winter give way to summertime's bouncing, classic comedies and the more swashbuckling of the tragedies. And while it's by no means the rule, nature and the elements tend to favor this transition.

From the actor's point of view, it's difficult to get into the spirit of spouting curses and plotting murder when the audience before you is serenely munching tofu dogs. Meanwhile, for the audience members enjoying a picnic in the sunshine, blood sport is good fun now and again, but any character who persists in screaming for vengeance and licking gore-stained hands on such a nice day may likely appear to be taking things a little too seriously. In fact, if we are perfectly honest with ourselves, we will admit that, as far as outdoor theater is concerned, we would happily give up any number of brooding Hamlets in exchange for one really funny performing dog.

Happily, the Marin Shakespeare Company has heeded this silent cry: its production of A Midsummer Night's Dream this summer boasts the talents of one Bonzer, circus dog extraordinaire, who, with partner Diane Wasnak (formerly of the New Pickle Circus and Cirque du Soleil), is taking a hiatus from the lucrative cruise ship circuit to play Starveling's Dog. Whether Bonzer will be adhering strictly to Method acting for the role or will just "play it natural" is not known at this time, but his interpretation will doubtless set a new standard.

The venue has a strange way of interacting with the play, and each venue performs a trick of its own. The most celebrated example of this locally might be the productions of Cal Shakes, whose stage in the Bruns Amphitheater nestles organically among the Berkeley hills, making it seem as if nature has chosen to attend in person and the only thing not real is the audience. Like an inkblot, the pattern of the hills and trees can be endlessly interpreted: in Love's Labour's Lost, they were obviously symbols of ennui and charmed boredom; in last season's The Seagull, they became wealth, or longing, or powerlessness, or promise, whatever the play needed at the moment.

The experience at Berkeley's John Hinkle Park, now used by the Shotgun Players, is altogether different. In a park everyone forgets about, with a round of packed earth for playing space and stone steps stacked up on the tiny hillside for seats, the plays are intimate, the acoustics are exceptional, and the actors may at any time decide to come sit on your lap. Free Shakespeare in Golden Gate Park, on the other hand, actively courts madness and confusion: thousands might show up (and why not? it's free), and there's the incomparable excitement of the most diverse audience anywhere in the Bay Area – some of whom have never seen a play before, many of whom have never seen Shakespeare before, and all of whom are out to have a good time, by force if necessary.

Actors, directors, designers, stagehands – everyone connected with outdoor theater – will never tire of telling you about the "magic" of it all. Of course, one should never trust theater people – they are, after all, trained liars, and with a vested interest in your attendance. But it's true that something happens in an outdoor production that is undeniably like alchemy.

The catalog of inducements to attend such performances could go on indefinitely: there is simply so much outdoor theater, in so many different places, and in such variety. But all such productions share one thing: each, like a ripe tomato, or an afternoon off, is one of the minor miracles of the summer, worth waiting all year to relish for the brief time it lasts.

The great outdoors
Selected summer theatrical fare

California Shakespeare Theater Julius Caesar, May 31-June 22; Arms and the Man, July 5-27; Measure for Measure, Aug. 9-31; Much Ado about Nothing, Sept. 13-Oct. 5, Bruns Amphitheater, 701 Heinz, Berk. $24-$49. (510) 548-3422, www.calshakes.org.

Marin Shakespeare Company Merry Wives of Windsor, July 11-Aug. 17; Don Juan, July 18-Aug. 17; A Midsummer Night's Dream, Aug. 29-Sept. 27, Forest Meadows Amphitheatre, 50 Acacia, San Rafael. $15-$25. (415) 499-1108, www.marinshakespeare.org.

San Francisco Mime Troupe Production TBA. Opens July 4, Dolores Park, Dolores between 18th and 20th Sts., S.F.; check the Web site soon for a complete schedule. Free. (415) 285-1717, www.sfmt.org.

San Francisco Shakespeare Festival Love's Labour's Lost, Aug. 30-Sept. 21, Golden Gate Park, west of the Conservatory of Flowers, S.F. Free. 1-800-978-PLAY, www.sfshakes.org.

Shakespeare at Stinson Pericles, May 16-June 29; Comedy of Errors, July 5-Aug. 24; The Miser, Aug. 29-Oct. 12, Highway 1 at Calle del Mar, Stinson Beach. $13-$23. (415) 868-1115, www.shakespeareatstinson.org.

Shakespeare Santa Cruz The Comedy of Errors, July 16-Aug. 24; Hamlet, July 27-Aug. 24, UC Santa Cruz, the Glen, Santa Cruz. $12-$36. (831) 459-2159, www.shakespearesantacruz.org.

Shotgun Players Mother Courage and Her Children, July 26-Sept. 14, John Hinkle Park, Southampton between San Diego Road and Somerset Place, Berk. Free. (510) 704-8210, www.shotgunplayers.org.