Shakespeare comes to life in Adobe State Historic Park

A small gray lizard, ducking its head and blinking in the afternoon light, darts out from under a wooden plank at the edge of the unpaved courtyard. A resident of the Petaluma Adobe State Historic Park, the tiny reptile begins to run forward across the yard, but suddenly stops. To its left, a four-piece band has abruptly launched into an original tune with a decidedly Latin flavor, while directly in front, about 20 feet away, a boisterous troupe of actors, happily shouting and clapping, begin to move in a large, celebratory dance.

These are the members of We Players, a one-of-a-kind San Francisco-based theater company, and the lizard has just found itself in the middle of a rehearsal for William Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet,” done Petaluma Adobe style.

Apparently, even lizards can be critics. Or perhaps this one merely suffers from stage fright.

Either way, in a fraction of the time it takes the dashing Romeo (Mohammad Shehata) to fall head over boots for the lovely and exuberant Juliet (Maria Leigh) - which is to say, instantaneously - the scaly little visitor turned tail and disappeared back into the warm historic edifice of the Adobe.

“We’re working on the Capulet ball scene, where Romeo and Juliet see each other for the first time,” explains stage manager Moira McGovern. “We’re practicing transitions. This show is particularly tricky in terms of transitions, because it takes place all over the Adobe, and the audience has to literally get up and move with the story. They even join in sometimes.”

Welcome to the wacky world of We Players, a 16-year-old company committed exclusively to site-integrated performance, a fancy way of saying they stage classic plays in public places, particularly state parks. The company has staged a claustrophobic “Hamlet” on Alcatraz Island, unleashed the bloody “Macbeth” within the castle-like walls of Fort Point, and led audiences on a seaside journey through the aquatic French fairytale, “Ondine,” at San Francisco’s Sutro Baths.

Stories as beloved as “Beowulf” and “The Odyssey,” as familiar as Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” and “The Tempest,” have been brought majestically to life in wholly unexpected places - on board the historic clipper ship Alma, the sands and trails of Angel Island, the beach at Hyde Street Pier, within the mysterious, echoing chapel at Fort Mason.

This is hardly passive, sit-back-and-watch theater. When the characters eat, so does the audience.

During the party scene, the audience is invited to learn the steps of the ancient Capulet dance and join in. When Friar Lawrence appears to perform a sacred water ritual – a kind of soothing Shakespearean “baptism” – Juliet and her family anoint with water any audience members choosing to participate.

According to Artistic Director Ava Roy – who is directing “Romeo and Juliet” - the Petaluma Adobe is more than just a location where folks will watch the show. In a very real way, the park is also the show’s co-director and a performer too. In fact, Roy says she “cast” the Adobe much the same way the performers were cast.

“I knew I wanted to set ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in a place that was warm,” Roy says, “because, honestly, what happens in this play - which Shakespeare set in Italy in the summer – it would never happen in San Francisco. It’s too cold. This is a very warm weather play. People get stirred up. Temperatures rise, then love happens, and everything else.”

In this production on Shakespeare’s beloved romantic tragedy, Roy and her team have made a number of audacious choices. Not just in how to stage the story, but in how the actors will portray their characters.

“When I was offered Mercutio, my mind was blown,” says Courtney Walsh, of Petaluma.

Walsh will be playing Romeo’s outrageous and outspoken BFF as an eccentric middle-aged woman with a tragic crush on her much younger companion.

“It took me a couple of days to wrap my head around it,” she says, “but the more I work on it, the more I think it is a really spectacular and brilliant choice.”

Walsh, who has lived in Petaluma for about a year-and-a-half, studied acting at Yale University, and eventually became a lawyer, defending children in abuse cases. Since returning to the stage about 10 years ago, she’s achieved acclaim in San Francisco, Europe and beyond, recently headlining the international touring production of “Clytemestra: Tangled Justice.”

“Romeo and Juliet” is her first show with We Players. And, she says, she’s having a blast.

“The essential things about Mercutio have nothing to do with age or gender,” observes Walsh. “He, or she, is smart, unpredictable, volatile, and completely inappropriate. That’s tremendously fun to play.

“And, I don’t want to spoil it,” Walsh continues, “but when Mercutio’s ‘big moment’ comes, the way we play it, the crew and other actors all get very emotional. It’s just incredibly powerful, what playing this character, this way, in this place, is bringing to this story.”

(Contact David Templeton at argus@arguscourier.com)