(This One’s A Little Self-Indulgent)
Shakespeare’s been done to death in every conceivable way. Presumably, there is no new way to do Shakespeare that hasn’t already been echoed from a million other productions over the course of the past 100 or so years. Just saying this in some circles would be construed by some as fighting words, but in some circles this sort of sentiment has been expressed so many times that it’s become a cliché. But even if Shakespeare HAS been done to death, there’s no reason to stop producing the old guy’s scripts. Yes, a lot of money goes into it, but a lot of money goes into Symphonies and operas and there’s something about Beethoven the way there’s something about Stravinsky the way there’s something about Shakespeare. And that’s why it’s been a lot of fun going to Spring Green for the American Players Theatre’s summer outdoor shows over the years . . . the plots and dialogue are al well-worn and even a fresh approach to any of the guy’s scripts that makes it worth the trip.
(What I Was Sying Was . . . )
There’s a strange emotional calculus at work . . . a trip west along the south edge of the state . . . west beyond Madison through places like Middleton, Cross Plains, Mazomanie and finally Spring Green. Somewhere in there we pick up lodging at a tiny little hotel by the side of the road that seems surprised that we’re interested in spending a couple of nights there. This time around the room cost $60 per night which as we understand it was a pretty good deal, but recent floods and a perilous economy has hit the area pretty heavily. There are areas of Spring Green that are STILL pumping out the water. We sop off at the usual liquor store to stock up on a certain tiny microbrew made in exquisitely small batches that comes from arena and isn’t sold anywhere east of Madison. There’s an anthropomorphized catfish on the bottle drinking a beer. Beneath the catfish there’s the logo: “This is livin!” The liquor store in question was laden with sandbags. We parked something like a block away and walked it in. There were a couple of guys talking about hunting inside.
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(There's always something more)
In addition to catching an O’Neill and two Shakespeares over the course of two days, my wife and I usually take in some of the stranger aspects of that part of the statea place positively crawling with some of Wisconsin’s most interesting kinds of Weird. Our first trip out we found ourselves at a bar called “the Parkin’ Inn” . . . a traditional rural Wisconsin Sports Bar with . . . as near as we could make out . . . an inflatable jungle safari motif going on that no one seemed willing to acknowledge. This section of the state is home to both Frank Lloyd Wright’s bizarrely functional Taliesin home, a tourist’s shrine to the late architect and that tribute to disturbingly eccentric excess that is the House On The Rock, which is an insidious little tourist destination. (Every year people flood into the place simply because they’ve heard about it. They leave probably quite bewildered and completely unaware that some part of their psyche has been permanently scarred. The massive doll carousel alone is a sight strong enough to do permanent, if elegantly subtle chromosomal damage.)
(Where Was I?)
The APT theatre is, in and of itself, a very beautiful place. Walk beyond the parking lot full of upascale family vehicles (Escalades, Range Rovers and suchlike) and you’re climbing a hill beyond picnickers drinking wine and eating things probably much more interesting than you’ve had in the past week. Somewhere up the pathway, you end up meeting with someone with the unsavory job of taking tickets on a forest path . . . then there are the gift shops and refreshment stands. It’s all peripheral to the theatre experience, but somehow it all adds to a completely unique understanding of those particular plots on those particular nights. Maybe there’s no direct correlation between a Lake Louie Scotch Beer with Fish Fry at the Shed and an early summer performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream or subsequent slumber at a budget motel, but each element informs on the others in such a way that makes for a truly unique theatre experience in a tucked-away corner of the state Summer’s delicate haze.
