PHOTOSBY CHRIS KELLY staff Clockwise: Audience members sit on the grass in Riverside Gardens Park and watch as relationships in the human and fairy worlds go awry in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Oberon (David Cruse) and Puck (Julianna Stanford) hatch a scheme. Oberon watches as Helena (Sarah Knittel) begs Demetrius (Ruben Nagy) not to leave her. Taking a cue from the Bard’s oft-quoted line in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” putting on a theatrical production outdoors doesn’t always run smoothly.
“When we design for outside, especially in the park, the considerations are different because of the wind, it’s our biggest issue,” explained John Bukovec, director of the Summer Shakespeare Series that is staging “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Riverside Gardens Park in Red Bank.
The series is presented by the Performing Arts Center at Brookdale Community College.
“Last year, we had large flats, and secured them but we had to try to figure out which direction to secure them in because the wind would change direction.”
“This year, we sort of have flags, tall green, red and blue flags that designate themselves as the forest area. We try to be as minimalist as possible; it’s very Greek in its style where you sort of designate a place, play from there and hope people use their imagination; they don’t want to see all the bells and whistles.”
This is the fourth year in which Bukovec’s summer thespians are putting on Shakespeare outdoors for local audiences.
Three performances of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” were presented at the park last weekend and three remain: Friday, July 22, and Saturday, July 23, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, July 24, at 5 p.m.
The comedy explores relationships in the human and fairy worlds and comes to a conclusion with one of the Bard’s most famous lines: “The course of true love never did run smooth.”
Bukovec heads the Theater Department at Brookdale Community College and calls the summer series “my baby.” When he joined the Brookdale faculty as an adjunct in 1996, he realized Shakespearean theater was lacking in the area.
“When I looked around, I saw that the primary theater companies around this area were all doing musical theater. So, I love Shakespeare, and I always wanted to do it.”
He founded the Summer Shakespeare Series, which continues to grow in popularity. This year, the cast numbers 33 intrepid thespians ranging from a 74-year-old dramaturge to preteens.
“At any point in the last four years, I’ve had a full range of students, precollege, alumni, community theater people, semiprofessionals, daughters, sons, mothers and grandmothers,” Bukovec said. “There’s just a complete mix of society, quite honestly.”
That means every summer, Bukovec rises to the challenge of schooling an eclectic cast in the finer points of performing in a Shakespearean production.
“What I like about being able to do it this way is it’s more of an ensemble as well as an educational experience for everybody,” he said. “It’s not just learn your lines and get up and do it.
“When we start the project, we spend the first three nights dealing with the study of what is verse, what is Shakespeare, what is going on, how was he writing? Because no matter what the set looks like, our best compliment is having people leave who understand what they saw.
“This is only accomplished through everyone understanding what they’re doing and saying.
“If you focus them on learning it and how to communicate it, I can guarantee people may not like it, but they will at least know what’s going on.”
Each year, the scope of the productions has increased.
“The first year, it had never been done before so we did it bare bones and used what we had in the theater. Each year, it just continued to grow,” he said. “Finally, we started really focusing on designing it, taking the time during the year to make sure it’s designed appropriately.
“In the park, we play on the grass with the river in the background. We’ve averaged [an audience of] 175-200 people per night. It’s reassuring that people are willing to come out and watch. It bodes well.”
People tend to linger after performances, Bukovec said.
“People sort of stay around to talk. They want to talk to each other, to the cast to thank them for the experience, for doing something that is difficult and for doing it as well as they did. It’s first and foremost nice for the audience to feel that way and for the cast to be received that way.
“I think because of the fact that there are no restraints of a physical space, it becomes an experience of language. People come in. They’re willing to suspend their disbelief and they truly get transported to a another place. That’s really the actor’s job.”
“What’s nice about Red Bank is that when you’re sitting there, you do see the Navesink, the boats, feel the breeze,” he continued. “You start to relax and oddly enough, all the hustle and bustle, which is less than 50 yards away, sort of leaves. It allows you to experience something as opposed to feeling you have to understand something, to enjoy it for what it is. You don’t feel like you have to get analytical, to break it down, figure out the meaning.
Let the actors do that and just relax and enjoy the beauty of the language. The man knew how to write.
“Every night it’s different, a whole new audience and it’s a beautiful thing. Everything changes every performance. Why would you want it to be the same every night?”
—— Gloria Stravelli