Theatre Forms: Directed by Mother Nature

by Christopher DiRaddo

From coast to coast, during the summer months, Canadians enjoy the pleasant pastime of outdoor theatre. Whether it is by the beach, in the park, or under a tent, outdoor theatre gives the public a chance to combine two of its great loves: warm weather and the stage.

However, producing work in the great outdoors presents artists with a whole new set of challenges they do not experience in the familiar confines of an indoor theatre. There is no fourth wall. Anything can happen, and performers need to be ready to roll with the punches. Also, Mother Nature can turn out to be one unpredictable cast member.

“The great thing about outdoor theatre is that you don’t have to say goodbye to the night,” says Bard on the Beach’s Artistic Director Christopher Gaze. “When you’re enjoying the warmth of the evening you can still stay with the night. You don’t have to suddenly turn your back on a beautiful sunset.” Gaze started up the company 15 years ago, bringing Shakespeare to Vancouver’s Vanier Park under a large tent on the waterfront. “We leave the back of the set open so the audience can enjoy looking straight through the centre of the stage and seeing the mountains and ships on English Bay and the sun going down.”

The problem with all of this gorgeous natural illumination is backlighting. The company’s lighting plan is key in counteracting this problem. “We’ve had the same lighting cue for 15 years. The first cue has to be everything on. Then as the sun dips away that’s when our lighting can get more exotic.”

Lighting is also problematic for Saskatoon’s Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan. “I think one thing we tend to take for granted working in modern theatres is using lighting as a storytelling element,” says Artistic Director Mark von Eschen. “You can’t rely on the lighting to tell the story and with Shakespeare that works really well because his text reveals the lighting cues.”

Hot and Cold

Like Bard on the Beach, Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan presents classical work under a tent, down by a body of water. The temperature in Saskatoon, during the summer, can dip anywhere from a hot 33 degrees during a matinee in July to a chilly eight degrees on a wet August evening. Costumes are made with this in mind, with actors having to remove or add pieces of clothing at different times during the season.

“We get thunderstorms that roll through very quickly,” says von Eschen. “A prairie thundershower will last 15 minutes so there have been occasions where we have stopped the performance and waited for the storm to blow over.” Some of the troupe’s seasoned cast members are so used to performing alongside the weather that they can actually see a storm coming, pick up the pace, and shave a couple of minutes off an act.

Halifax’s Shakespeare by the Sea begins their season every year with an outdoor 4 a.m. version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “It’s a really fun way of opening our season,” says company actor and director Jesse MacLean, “to put it on in the morning, on the Halifax waterfront so that when the sun is rising in the play, it is actually rising in the background.”

Audience Interaction

MacLean has been involved with the company for the past two years. “I was apprehensive as an actor going into it because I’d never been in a situation where the lights didn’t come up.” Shakespeare by the Sea presents their plays in Point Pleasant Park by the Halifax Harbour amid crumbling ruins and military batteries. They have no real sets, no microphones, and use no lighting other than some flashlights or a couple of spotlights. Although unaccustomed to seeing the audience before him, MacLean quickly got over his nervousness and now thrives on the interaction with the audience.

MacLean says that the biggest challenge for his company would be the physical and vocal ones brought on by the nature of their performance space. “To be outside and not be bound by the confines of an actual theatre is a major challenge because you’re not projecting to the back wall. You’re projecting against trees and your ceiling is the sky so your voice has to be in top condition.”

Shakespeare by the Sea’s productions also travel from one end of the park to the other so actors have to also be able to run ahead of the audience for the next scene and not be winded by the jog. Also, the company does not do traditional blocking, as they perform around their audience; some nights they might have 25 people, some nights 200. “It makes for more of an organic acting experience. You sort of get to be your own director,” says MacLean.

Why Shakespeare?

What is interesting to note about Canada’s numerous outdoor theatre companies is that most, if not all, present primarily the work of William Shakespeare. “I think Shakespeare is meant to be played outside,” says MacLean. “The plays are tailored to that type of presentation.”

“It’s the words,” says Gaze, “that are the draw. If you can get actors good enough to get those words across, you can just sink into people minds and imaginations.” Gaze believes that outdoor theatre has broadened the demographic of those who attend the theatre. “There is marvellous cross-pollination. We have opened an awful lot of people’s eyes to the theatre.”

MacLean also sees a community that he believes does not regularly go to the theatre. People with what he calls a “Shakespeare Hangover” after having had a negative experience with the playwright in school. “A lot of times, our audiences are just sort of blown away at how easy it is to understand,” he says. “We’re a small company, we can’t afford flashy costumes. But it all works in our favor because when you strip it all away, what else is there but the words of the greatest playwright of the English language?”

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