Indy Theatre Habit

On Friday night I was exhausted for a number of reasons and the last thing I wanted to do was drive to downtown Indianapolis and sit on the ground for three hours. 

However, this was the only weekend for the Heartland Actors’ Repertory Theatre’s production of “Much Ado About Nothing” in the outdoor Celebration Ampitheater of the White River State Park.  Last year’s production of “The Merchant of Venice” had been one of my top five theatrical experiences of the year.  I knew that if I could just get down there, I would be glad I had made the effort.

And I was.  I am!  The acting was superb, the direction (by Nathan Garrison) deft.  The costumes (designed by Kathleen Egan) were sumptuous.  The lighting (designed by Laura E. Glover) was luscious.  The set (designed by Lindsey Lyddan) was simple yet effective.  The choreography (by Bethany Barber) and music (see below) were elegant.  The feeling of sharing an important live theatre event with hundreds and hundreds of other people was heady.  Most satisfying of all, the story was engaging and the language was magnificent.  I think I might be falling in love with Will Shakespeare, dead and famous though he is.   

The sound was…disappointing.  As you know if you read my blog regularly, I usually focus on what I appreciate, but I will say more about the sound for this show in a moment because its poor quality really surprised me, given the excellence of the other aspects of the show.

Overall, though, HART’s production of Shakespeare in the White River State Park was a very special treat.

This post will go up too late to help people decide whether or not they want to go to the second and last night of “Much Ado About Nothing,” but I want to record my experience to remind myself, when this time rolls around next year, that HART’s Shakespeare show in the White River State Park is now an annual not-to-be-missed event.

Parking

Parking is much easier than you might imagine.  Pretend you’re going to the Eiteljorg and turn down the parking ramp there.  Friday night it was only $3 for the whole night!  Even more affordable than last year’s $5.  From the parking garage it is just a short walk along a lovely pool of water to the outdoor ampitheater.

“Are you looking for the Shakespeare?” I heard someone say.  “It’s that-a-way.”  I love that HART’s productions have caused people to put a “the” in front of the playwright’s name.  I did it myself when I paid the parking attendant.  “I’m here for the Shakespeare,” I told her.

Freebies

The directional signs do not say Shakespeare, though.  Look for the signs that say “Free Shows Where the Grass Grows.”  HART’s production is third in the five-part White River State Park 2009 Family Arts Series.  All events in this series are free-of-charge because of the generosity of the Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, Inc., and other sponsors.  Thank you, sponsors!

When I got to the ampitheater, someone offered me a free cardboard fan from the White River State Park.  This was very helpful not only for fanning but for blocking the brightness of the sun setting behind the stage.  It also makes a fun souvenir.

Someone else offered me a printed program.  Yay!  I love printed programs, even when I am not planning to write about a show.  Many free outdoor events do not offer programs, so I really appreciate that this one did.  It was on glossy paper in full color, too!  (Graphic design by Dave Ruark.)

I think the Park also provided a lot of the blue canvas folding chairs that I saw people sitting in on the back/top tiers of the ampitheater.  After the show, I saw everybody folding up their chairs and returning them to a truck that was parked near the concession stands.   How cool is that!

However, lots of other people, like me, had brought blankets to sit on.  I also brought a pillow.  This was just right for me.

Checklist

Speaking of what to bring, if you live downtown, it is perfectly fine to just hop on your bicycle or put on your walking shoes and drop by the ampitheater empty-handed.  However, if you are coming by car, here is what I recommend you bring for one person:

• A little cash for parking
• A little cash for buying a brownie or a hot dog or a glass of wine, and maybe a HART souvenir
• Blanket and pillow to sit on
• Sweater or long-sleeved shirt to pull on over your t-shirt when the sun goes down
• Discreet citronella candle or small bottle of bug repellent gel. The bugs Friday night were not the biting kind, but I found myself brushing them away from my eyes a lot.
• Umbrella, just in case.

Last year I went to the Shakespeare with a friend and she packed a vegetarian picnic in a basket for us.  That was a lot of fun, too, although it took a lot more planning and carrying.  This year there was live, pre-show music for picnic-ers to enjoy, too, but I didn’t arrive in time to hear it.

Add to the checklist: get there EARLY to get a seat from which you can see the whole stage area.  You will still have a good time if you can’t see the stage, but you will understand and enjoy a lot more if you can see it well.

Audience Appreciation

I arrived too late to get a good seat, but I loved watching the audience almost as much as I loved trying to watch the play. 

For the first half, I put my pillow down at the side of the stage on one of the few remaining open patches of grass and discovered that some people that I knew from storytelling were sitting near me. They had their 14-week-old baby with them.

“Baby’s first Shakespeare!” I said.

“Yes,” the husband said with a straight face.  “We’ve been taking photos all night.”

When the show began and the first actors appeared and walked to the grass in front of the raised stage, a docile-looking mastiff in the front row of the audience started to bark at them.  I don’t usually understand Dog, but I understood very clearly that this dog was saying “Hey!  Don’t you see this line right in front of me?  No one is supposed to go in front of this line!”

His owner laughed, embarrassed, and put his hand around the dog’s mouth to try to shush him.  He also leaned down to whisper to him.  I imagine the owner said, “It’s okay!  Those guys are allowed over there!  Let them do their thing!”  After that, every time I looked over at the dog, he was quiet, relaxed, and completely focused on the actors.  Another Shakespeare convert!

A group of young hipsters took up almost a whole row on the tier behind the dog owner.  They were totally focused, too, and I loved watching them from under my eyelids as they relished the play.  They laughed in delight whenever there was a funny line or a funny bit of action, which was often.

When one of the characters on stage declared, “We are the only love gods!” the hipsters cheered and gave each other high fives as they repeated the line.

Understanding Shakespeare

I had never seen or read or even Spark-noted “Much Ado About Nothing” before going to the show Friday night.  I love treating William Shakespeare as a new playwright.  I love learning about his work by seeing each play performed live first.

Now that I have seen “Much Ado About Nothing,” I want to read the whole play, just for the pleasure of it.  Throughout the night on Friday I jotted down many, many lines that brought me joy.  Here are just a few examples:

“Claudio is civil as an orange.” 

“This learned constable is too learned to be understood.” 

“I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes…and okay, yes, I will go with you somewhere right now if you want me to.” 

(I need to check that last one against the script, but it was hilarious.)

Director Nathan Jamison and the actors did a wonderful job of making this comedy from the early 1600s accessible to a 2009 audience.   They didn’t change the script, as far as I know, but the way they interpreted the lines and presented them made them understandable.

Mind you, I know I would have understood what was going on a lot quicker if I had been able to actually see the first half of the show.  I couldn’t see most of the action in the first half because whether the actors were on the raised, temporary stage or on the grass in front of it, a garlanded pole was in the way.  It therefore took me a while to figure out what was going on based only on what I could hear.   I often wondered during the first half of the show what people in the main part of the audience were laughing about.

At one point early on I overhead the man sitting behind me say to his friend, “Right on!  It’s a coupla dudes trying to score!  I can relate!” 

I appreciated his helpful scene summary, but it wasn’t enough to make the whole story fall into place for me.

Connecting To the Characters

At intermission I moved to just behind the sign language interpreters on the other side of the crowd, chatting with several people as I went.

In my second seat I still couldn’t see half the stage, but I could see all of the grassy part in front.  This helped a lot.  I never did figure out why reticent Don John (Robert Neal) had been such a jerk, plotting to make handsome young Claudio (Ben Tebbe) think his sweet girl, Hero (Phoebe Taylor), had cheated on him.  However, I said “whew!” with everyone else when they finally got married.

Then I thought, “I wonder why Hero would want to give up her independence for a shallow, easily misguided man who only cares about her virginity?” but I’ve always been more of a Beatrice than a Hero.

Speaking of Beatrice, I also said “awww!” with everyone else when sparring lovers Beatrice (Diane Timmerman) and Benedick (Michael Shelton) finally kissed.  They had spent almost the whole play protesting to all who would listen that not only did they not love each other but they did not want to get married to anyone, ever.  Those two were a hoot!  Timmerman’s and Shelton’s readings of Shakespeare’s lines were vibrant.

“Much Ado” is a comedy, so I wasn’t supposed to be moved to tears, but I did tear up when Hero’s father, Leonato (Charles Goad), said, “Thou hast killed my child” to the guys who betrayed her.

Thank goodness, thank goodness, I moved my pillow for the second half because I would not have missed Matthew Roland’s hilarious portrayal of the smarmy Dogberry for anything.  Dogberry is some sort of official in the story.  He is sleazy, but ultimately a help in uncovering the plot that smeared Hero’s good name.

At first he reminded me of a Nazi officer…from “Hogan’s Heroes.”  But he quickly became a much more layered and surprising personality than anything from TV.  When one of the other characters called him an “ass,” I and everyone around me laughed in recognition.  Yes!  That’s what Dogberry was: a slimy, snorting “too learned” ass.

We laughed even more when Dogberry semi-indignantly, semi-sarcastically brought up again and again to everyone else that one of his prisoners had called him an ass.

I didn’t even recognize Scot Greenwell as the feeble Verges (Dogberry’s partner) until I read my program later but he was a riot, too.

Really, I admired each of the cast members when I could see and/or hear them.  I am including a list of the whole cast at the end of this post.

A Word About the Set, Lights, and Costumes

Lindsey Lyddan’s set was deceptively simple.  It consisted mostly of a couple of large swaths of white cloth tied back from a sheer black scrim, plus a handful of potted and manicured trees, but it gave the feeling of being some place sunny and tasteful.  Adorable Frank Shelton (“Boy”) and other cast members moved the trees around on the raised stage platform to establish the different scenes.  More than one character hid behind them and peered through the branches in an amusing way.

Lighting designer Laura Glover’s job was easy during the first half because the sun was in charge.  During the second half, though, after the sun had set, I loved how the stage lights bathed the various love scenes in rosy tones.  It was witty yet very subtle – I wouldn’t have consciously noticed it if I hadn’t been thinking about what to say about the lighting – and effective.

Kathleen Egan’s richly beautiful costumes showed a careful attention to detail from trimmings to footwear. 

Tarin Hurstell was the stage manager.  

A Word About the Dancing and Music

Although this was not a musical per se, there were elements of live music that enhanced the show beautifully.  A string quartet from Park Tudor High School played lilting tunes during the party scene and the wedding scene while the characters danced prettily to form entwined circles and other patterns.  (Choreography by Bethany Barber.)   The members of the string quartet were Grace Barlow on cello; Heidi Chen on violin; Kyle Pate on viola; and Alex Spartz on violin.

Update 8/3/09 – I am adding an excerpt from Brian G. Hartz’s comment, below, to my post at this point.  It updates and expands the information I add about the music in the show.  Brian said:

A small correction to the program: Our wonderful student string quartet was actually a multi-school affair. (This fact didn’t make it into the program in time.) Violist Kyle Pate attends Perry Meridian High School, and our 2nd violin, Laurel Crutchfield (a pinch hitter who graciously stepped in late in the game), is a North Central student. We found them through Park Tudor’s orchestra director, Lorelei Farlow. We’ve been wanting live musical accompaniment for a HART show for years now, and we were finally able to achieve it this year, thanks to these very talented players.

The other stringed instrument played by both Michael Shelton and Sam Fain in the show was in fact a small guitar, very much like an old “period” guitar — they’ve gotten a lot bigger over the years. And the melody for the song sung by Claudio was an original composition by Michael Shelton. That’s worth noting, too.

During the funeral scene, when Claudio thought his lack of faith in his beloved had actually killed Hero, Ben Tebbe sang a mournful song without any instrumental accompaniment.  I didn’t feel any sympathy for that wuss, Claudio, but I swooned over the actor’s strong, masculine voice.

A small stringed instrument (a mandolin?) helped Benedick (Michael Shelton) and at least one other character express their feelings in various scenes.  I enjoyed those musical embellishments, too.

A Word About the Sound

The sound system and/or its implementation when the actors were speaking was very bad.  High school garage band, garage sale bad.  Lots of cracking and rustling and shrieking and fading in and out and sudden volume changes and whole chunks of dialogue lost to failed microphones.  When I got home and told my sister about the show, she thought maybe the sound had just been bad in the two places I sat, but I don’t think so.  I think it was bad everywhere in the ampitheater Friday night.

It was not bad enough to make me leave, but it was very distracting, very disappointing, especially in conjunction with the other aspects of the show, which were so well done.  The poor sound quality made the difference in this show being merely a very good experience overall and the magical, transformative, core-shaking experience that it could have been.

Early on, I looked at my program to see who had designed the sound for this show.  The program listed Brian G. Hartz.

I thought, “Hmm.  Well, this bad sound quality can’t be his fault because I have seen many shows at theatres around town for which he designed the sound, and all of those sound designs were excellent.”

So then I glanced up at the obnoxiously large sign on the side of the stage and jotted down the name of the company responsible for providing the “hydraulic stage” and all of the light and sound equipment.  I am inclined to believe that the poor sound quality was the fault of IPA Productions.

I don’t really care about placing blame, though.  I do, however, hope that someone will Do Something about the sound quality for the Shakespeare next year.

Ultimately…Contentment                           

The evening was cloudy; rain threatened but held off.  At one point, though, I looked up and thought I could see the Big Dipper peering out from behind the cloud cover.  I could feel myself finally relaxing.  There’s just something very special about being in a large group of people outside in the cool freshness of the night, all of us focused on a timeless story impeccably (for the most part) presented.

Afterwards, walking back to the parking garage, there was a woman walking near me arm-in-arm with her boyfriend.  I heard her sigh contentedly and say, “Ahh, good times….Charlotte would have enjoyed this, too.”

And a little later, someone walking behind me said, “We’ll have to watch for this again next year.”

Yes, indeed we will.

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com

Follow IndyTheatre on Twitter, too.

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Here is a list of the “Much Ado About Nothing” cast:

Leonato – Charles Goad

Antonio – Mark Goetzinger

Hero – Phoebe Taylor

Beatrice – Diane Timmerman

Don Pedro – Chris Hatch

Benedick – Michael Shelton

Claudio – Ben Tebbe

Don John – Robert Neal

Borachio – Paul Wallace

Conrade – Daniel Boughton

Margaret – Jamison Kay Garrison

Ursula – Bethany Barber

Dogberry – Matthew Roland

Verges – Scot Greenwell

Balthasar, 2^nd Watch – Sam Fain

Friar Francis, 1^st Watch – David Mosedale

Sexton, attendant – Kevin Anderson

Boy – Frank Shelton