At about 10:30 p.m. last Friday, Juliet had had enough.
Thanks to an unnecessarily complicated plan that had gone awry, she’d found her teenage husband dead. Not being a plenty-more-fish-in-the-sea type, she snatched up his dagger and plunged it into her own chest. On cue, an ambulance siren began to wail in the distance — as if an unsuspecting passersby had witnessed the drama in the park and, to be safe, called 911.
A little earlier in the evening, just as Romeo’s buddy Mercutio collapsed (also the victim of a knife crime), celebratory fireworks crackled in another part of the village. Such is the unpredictability of a stage and actors exposed to the elements: rain, wind, bugs and any passerby who happens to wander into Oak Park’s Austin Gardens between now and Aug. 17.
“That’s part of the magic of this experience and of being outdoors,” said Peter G. Andersen, the director of Oak Park Festival Theatre’s “Romeo and Juliet.” “You’re not crammed in like a sardine.
You can look at the stars for a moment, have a glass of wine, turn to your friends, talk about what’s happening. It’s our job to do a good job, to hold your attention.” Andersen surely wouldn’t mind then if, while watching Juliet calling out to Romeo from her balcony, the audience’s gaze drifts to the fluttering treetops above her — to perhaps ponder the meaning of all our human fretting beneath a vast, inky canopy.
Oak Park’s outdoor theater, now in its 49th year, begins each y.
