Blow blow thou summer wind
Woody Allen apparently once remarked that he loved London because you got all four seasons in one day. So he evidently had tried some open-air theatre while he was there.
I’ve been to performances in baking sun, hail, strong winds and rain, not necessarily all during one play but all during the summer months in England. It can add to the performance – the instance of a hailstorm during a production of Much Ado About Nothing resulted in the actors in the wedding scene appearing under neatly matching umbrellas, which added to the formality of the occasion – or not, as a howling gale can drown out the actors and send props flying. Just remember, the actors will probably be getting as cold, hot or wet as you and you should stay put if they are prepared to carry on. Oddly enough, I’ve never seen King Lear (storm scene, anyone?) done in the open air.
Other aspects of the great outdoors can be rather more annoying. The intrusions of sirens or low-flying planes and the output of incontinent birds do not add anything positive, however experimental one’s drama. However, an inexperienced individual losing control of his punt pole as he was distracted by Bottom and Titania on the banks of the Cherwell in Oxford brought a whole new humorous meaning to the word ‘groundling’.
All the world’s a stage
Having no roof can allow the production more scope – fireworks, horses and motor vehicles are much more feasible outdoors than inside and there is often more space for the actors to run about amongst the audience. The layout of the auditorium and stage can accommodate the director’s ideas as often it is constructed for the one production (unless the venue is something like the Greek theatre at Bradfield College where, funnily enough, the pupils do Greek plays, in Greek). The most successful productions marry the setting to the play - there is no point in using a wooded park for a kitchen-sink piece of social realism, whereas As You Like It is just right.
Open-air theatre in the evening can acquire an atmosphere quite unlike the equivalent under cover. Last year I attended a performance of Macbeth once the nights had started drawing in – the witches have never seemed so unearthly and the supernatural so close.
Shakespeare’s Globe has been reconstructed on the south bank of the Thames and is putting on productions in the so-called summer months so you can get an idea of what theatre was like when audiences and players might exchange insults and vegetables in the open air. Also, don’t forget to check your local press – it may surprise you where an intrepid drama group without its own theatre might brave the elements.
So take a sunhat, sunglasses and Wellingtons, wrap up warm, and enjoy.