Rebecca Kernes in As You Like It.
As Benedick tells Beatrice he’ll be buried in her eyes, the girl next to me forgets about her plate of barbecue. Couples on the bleachers and kids splayed out on blankets below the stage seem rapt by these words from the pen of William Shakespeare.
This particular Saturday, April 23, is the playwright's birthday, and the Downtown Container Park is celebrating with “tastes” of favorite plays performed by the Shakespeare Institute of Nevada.
From whip-smart comedies like Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It to consuming tragedies like Hamlet and Othello, Shakespeare's legacy gets shared in spurts on the main stage and around the park in roving spotlights. Giving off-the-cuff historical background between scenes, SIN head Dan Decker says of the Bard's influence on English: “We are speaking the language as he defined it.”
SIN’s creative director James “Big” White (who does a spirited Brutus) says that when the ensemble goes into schools with these theatrical tastes, kids seem to know what’s happening even if the language is beyond them. “You understand the emotion, which is why Shakespeare is meant to be seen, not read.”
Container Park's Taste of Shakespeare remedies that for everyone watching from the fake grass and restaurants and bars within earshot. Lines stick in my head:
James "BIg" White in Julius Caesar.
The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?
Give me a bowl of wine.
At one point, David Hart’s impassioned Hamlet leaves the stage to snake through the crowd, and he accidentally kicks my bag. Talk about breaking the fourth wall.
