Theater performances highlight new Guerneville park

For more than 400 years, William Shakespeare’s plays have been performed in all manner of worldly locations, from the West End of London to New York City’s Central Park - even on Alcatraz.

That list can now include a unique locale: underneath the Highway 116 bridge in Guerneville, complemented by the occasional Harley engine overhead, the distant voices of floaters along the Russian River and sunlight peeking through the riverbank’s trees.

That’s because the Pegasus Theater Co. is presenting the Bard’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” this month at the recently opened Riverkeeper Stewardship Park in downtown Guerneville.

The play, which runs Friday through Sunday nights until Aug. 31, is helping showcase the continuing renaissance of Guerneville, a LGBT-friendly tourist town of fewer than 5,000 residents that has turned into a foodie mecca with a burgeoning arts scene and at least three galleries.

The recently opened Guerneville Bank Club - a 1920s structure refurbished with a modern interior design housing nouveau businesses such as a pie company and a shop serving handmade ice cream - stands as the epitome of the current revival.

The new park serves as another reminder of the transformation. The 5-acre property on the north shore of the river, between a footbridge and Highway 116, had been neglected for about ?50 years. It was essentially a dumping ground for broken ?appliances and a camping spot for the homeless, earning the nickname of Liquor Store Beach.

But thanks to the work of the nonprofit Russian Riverkeeper group, the flood-prone parcel has been revitalized with 4,000 native plants, a rain garden that will remove silt from rain runoff and concrete benches that formed the audience seating for Sunday’s performance of Shakespeare’s comedy about the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, to Hippolyta.

“The town is really popping,” said France Warner, the publicist for the theater company. “It’s become a real arts destination.”

The staging of the play is part of the effort to bring art to town. About 40 people were on hand for the performance on Saturday, and 15 showed up on Sunday.

The park can fit an audience of 42, Warner said, though a few more can be squeezed in if need be. No admission is charged, but donations are accepted. Reservations for a reserved seat can be made at the company’s indiegogo.com page.

The production has had its struggles. “It’s turned out to be more complicated than we thought,” Warner said.

One problem is that the park is tucked behind the Sonoma Nesting Co., making it hard for drivers or pedestrians to see the entrance.

“People in town don’t even know about it,” Warner said.

Some people have stumbled into the production while taking a walk on the park’s concrete path, including a couple visiting from the Bay Area with their child in tow, said Lucia Kasulis, the front-of-the-house coordinator.

Another issue is that the concrete benches aren’t conducive to sitting through a two-hour play with intermission, so Pegasus provides cushions, and the top row for reserved patrons is decked out with red cushions that have thin layers of back support.

“There is no room for people to spread and sit like you are on a lawn,” Warner said. Theatergoers, however, can bring food and drinks.

The play, directed by Beulah Vega, is targeted at mature audiences and has been promoted with an “adult Russian River bent.”

In Shakespeare’s time, men would have played all the roles of women; however, in the Pegasus production, the casting has been flipped. Women have been cast in the roles of the two sets of young lovers, a nod to the recent Supreme Court decision affirming same-sex marriage.

The actor who plays Puck the elf, Jake Hamlin, appears shirtless with short denim shorts and combat boots as he roams around the park.

The locale does offer some advantages for Pegasus, a local, all-volunteer company. The actors can move 360 degrees around the audience - at times even walking between rows - and the acoustics under the concrete bridge allow the actors’ voices to carry so they don’t have to wear microphones.

“We’re in the forest; it’s a great place to be,” Vega said. “It’s an amazing place, especially for this play. Puck runs through the bushes and everything. We tactfully talked to Riverkeeper before we opened, so there are specific places that he is allowed to run so none of the vegetation gets trampled.”

You can reach Staff Writer Bill Swindell at 521-5223 or bill.swindell@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter ?@BillSwindell.