Photo credit: Kyle Cassidy (www.kylecassidy.com)
Twelfth Night (2006): Bradley K. Wrenn (Malvolio), Aaron Mumaw (Feste), Benjamin Cromie (Sir Toby Belch)
All Clark Park's a stage for Bard's “Twelfth Night”
by Tanya Barrientos
The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 3, 200
When you picture Shakespeare in the park, you think warm, breezy nights, black, starry skies, and gentle waves of the Bard's lyrical verse.
Not 11 struggling actors competing with 22 unyielding soccer players, a dozen loose dogs, and a steady stream of neighborhood joggers for a patch of green at Clark Park in West Philly. But that's how rehearsals have been for a small band of professional actors hoping to revive the local tradition of Shakespeare under the stars with little more than a handful of inexpensive props and sheer determination.
On one recent night - the company's first full run-through of the comedy Twelfth Night at the outdoor site - the humidity was low and park use was high.
Director Tom Reing could barely hear the actors' dialogue over the passionate shouts of the soccer players scrambling in the dirt patch directly behind him. He told his troupe that a big oak tree would mark center stage, and that the umbrella lying a few feet from the soccer game would be the footlights.
As he spoke, a big red mutt squatted blithely at center stage and performed his own brand of theater.
"OK," Reing sighed. "Please be aware of dogs. Please be aware of soccer balls. And poo." This whole thing got started about a year ago over a plate of french fries.
"Marla and I were trapped at Franklin Mills mall during a thunderstorm, and we started talking about summer theater in Philadelphia," says Maria Möller, one of the four founders of Shakespeare in Clark Park. Both Möller and Marla Burkholder are professional actors working in the Philadelphia area.
They decided that what Philly needs in the heat of August is a cool shot of Shakespeare, performed free, someplace unpretentious and easy to find.
"We picked Clark Park because it's a real community meeting place," Möller says as the No. 34 trolley clanks down Baltimore Avenue, rolling past a busy corner pizzeria and an equally busy coffee shop where a racially mixed gathering of students, business professionals and artists lounged. The idea was to stage a solid professional production, not a stumbling student show, and to perform one Shakespeare work each summer.
"At first it was just like wouldn't it be great... ." said Möller. "And then we were like we have to do this, OK?"
They called upon two of their friends, director Reing and Whitney Estrin, who knows a thing or two about theater administration and currently works as a fund-raiser for the Kimmel Center. The group mailed 100 letters to friends and family asking for donations.
"We asked twice," Reing said.
And by collecting $10 from some and $50 from others, they scraped together $3,000. They chose Twelfth Night, a dark comedy of manners, with women dressing as men, lovable drunkards and star-crossed lovers, mainly because they were sick of seeing productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
"And also because Twelfth Night is set in Illyria, a sort of fantastical world," Reing said. "And this is sort of a fantastical neighborhood. You've got people with dreadlocks and tattoos, all sorts."
When Reing auditioned actors, he told them they wouldn't get paid. The group also decided to save money by staging the play in modern clothing instead of tights and tunics.
If this production is a success, the organization intends to apply for nonprofit status and start working on getting bigger donations and grants.
"This isn't just about doing one production, it's about creating a company," Estrin says. Right now, most of the budget is going toward body mikes and simple sets - no stage, no footlights, no painted backdrops.
"We're going to rely on the light of the evening," Reing explained. "Which is why our timing is crucial. By 8:45 there's no light. The audience can't see the actors."
When the play's four-night run opens tonight at 7, the sloping area of the park known as "the bowl" will belong solely to the actors.
"We've got a permit," Möller said.
But until then, they must share the grass with every human or beast that wanders by.
During the outdoor rehearsal, the actors stayed in character as the soccer players whooped and groaned and cheered in a foreign language.
At one point, a yellow dog planted himself stage left and silently watched, while an elderly man wearing a baseball cap hovered - in an apparent effort to hear more clearly - about six inches away from the actors' backs.
In Act 2, when Bradley Wren, playing the character Malvolio, proclaimed: "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them," an orange soccer ball came sailing into the scene.
And yet the play went on - on the makeshift stage and on the nearby soccer pitch.
"Now I know what it's like to do Shakespeare in Beirut," Reing mumbled.
At the end of the run-through around 9 p.m., by the hazy yellow light of a street lamp, Reing told his actors he was proud of them.
"You had great concentration, and..." he began.
"Hey, sorry to interrupt," said a tattooed woman in black leggings, holding out a cigarette as she approached. "Any of you got a light?"