FREE LOVE - Part I

You gotta love the advertisements for this year's Shakespeare in the Park: big signs saying "FREE LOVE" ... and only in tiny print on the side do they mention the plays (Romeo & Juliet and Midsummer's Night's Dream). Even as we were walking into the park past those signs, my friends didn't realize those signs were for the production we were about to see. We had to go back and double-check.

The lack of big name superstar actors this year yielded at least two beneficent effects.

• First, the ticket-waiting process was much more reasonable. We queued up at 8:30 a.m. and made ourselves comfortable, but we didn't even need to get there so early -- our friend who joined the end of the queue at 11 a.m. also got tickets. (The Delacorte is small enough that there isn't really a bad seat in the house.)
• Second, the production itself was much better than in recent years. I'm not quite sure how the lack of a marquee name improves the overall performance, although I have some theories: (a) it may be easier to schedule rehearsals for the entire cast, so everyone is more accustomed to working together, (b) non-marquee actors may take direction better, especially as compared with iconic superstars, (c) film stars might not always have developed their stage-acting muscles, since film and stage require somewhat different skills and techniques, and (d) when they recruit a marquee name, they may have to skimp on payments to the other actors and the director, thus potentially reducing overall quality of the cast. And of course, if the superstar is more "diva" than "down-to-earth", I imagine that would undermine the cohesiveness of the acting corps.

I have never been a big fan of R&J. Their childish infatuation is so rash and ill-advised, that I've seldom been able to work up a tremendous amount of sympathy for them. (Although I always like Mercutio.) In this production, however, I was really moved at the end. For some reason, it really struck home that the feud (and childish rashness) had destroyed two families. Sure, there were cousins left -- but I felt much more deeply the horror of the parents who live to see the death of their own particular genetic line. (My own recommendation: have 3 to 5 children, if possible. This dramatically increases the chance that your line will continue. Parents with an "only child" are just asking for disaster. And even those with 2 children are risking a paucity of grandchildren.)

In this production, they really stressed the physical connection between Romeo and Juliet. There's a lot of heavy breathing into the microphone and a lot of full-body contact. It works, though. The nurse can be an annoying character, but she was good here.

My only quibble was with the set design, and more specifically, the shallow pool of water around and through which the action unfolds. It was cool-looking, sure, but it didn't seem to add anything to the production -- except small, pesky insects.

Except no - I was somewhat annoyed by the line police this year. They came out and announced some draconian rules: No line-jumping, no leaving the line except to go to the bathroom, and no switching. No switching? That's insane. Each person in line can collect 2 tickets, so why is it a problem if they switch off? I guess The Powers That Be were worried about people trying to pretend their friend who just joined the line was replacing someone else, but that's not a real problem in practice. (After all, the people in line behind you will speak up if you try to pull that stunt.) Later, the line police came back and explained an "exception" to the no-leaving-the-line-except-to-go-to-the-bathroom rule: if you are with a group, one person from the group can leave for no more than 15 minutes at a time to get a cup of tea, etc. But if you are solo, you're out of luck. (This discriminates against slow-thinking introverts who can't convince their neighbors in line to pretend they are a group so they can take advantage of the group privilege.)

One person ahead of us (X) ran into a spot of trouble because she made the mistake of taking a bathroom break just before the line police decided to count heads. Her companion, Y, didn't think of telling the head-counters that X had just stepped off line to go to the bathroom ... and also didn't think of telling them that they collectively wanted 4 tickets. Instead, when asked, Y just said, "I want 2 tickets." Bad mistake. When X returned to the line, she got chewed out for purportedly jumping the line. We vouched for her that she'd been there all along. The line police never officially accepted this story (even though it was true), but they eventually dropped it with a claim that they would "talk to their colleagues about it". I think the head-counters tacitly decided that since there were enough tickets for everyone at that point, there was no harm done to the people at the end of the queue. (In fact, they didn't start turning people away until more than 2 hours later.)

Public service announcement: Check the Public Theater web site for more information about schedule and ticket distribution.