“O time, thou must untangle this, not I.
It is too hard a knot for me to untie.”
So says Viola in Twelfth Night, the Shakespeare comedy that also includes the famous line, “If music be the food of love, play on.” Hear these and other immortal words at the Comeau property in Woodstock, where Bird-on-a-Cliff Theatre Company performs the play on the Elizabethan outdoor stage at 5:30 p.m. every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from July 26 through September 1.
In the 29 years that Bird-on-a-Cliff has been performing at the Comeau, said company co-founder David Aston-Reese, “… we did do the Scottish play and Hamlet, but we rely more on the comedies. It’s summer. People want to have a good time. They like the Comeau setting, the stage, and the forest behind the property.”
Aston-Reese has learned from successful summer-stock owners who bring back big Shakespeare’s comedies every ten years. “I thought that was a good rule of thumb,” he said. Twelfth Night is receiving its third production this year.
The company founders, Aston-Reese and Elli Michaels, often appear in the plays, but this year he is co-directing with Hank Neimark, while Michaels will appear as Maria, the servant who is key to a comedic mischief-making subplot.
Aston-Reese said the couple met in a production of Taming of the Shrew in New York City. “Elli was cast as Kate, and I was Petruchio. We ended up living above a theater on 13th Street. Then we decided we liked Woodstock.”
After mounting a few performances at the Byrdcliffe Theater, they heard from a friend who had audiences flocking to the free shows of Shakespeare outdoors he had been directing.
At the time, the Woodstock Playhouse was an open pavilion, where the newly created Bird-on-a-Cliff company staged Much Ado About Nothing. “We could tell it was going to go places,” said Aston-Reese. With the approval of the town board, they built a temporary stage on the Comeau property, the park-like setting located near the center of the village.
The stage was designed by Salvatore Tagliarino, who has designed sets for shows by artists ranging from Fleetwood Mac to Liza Minelli at locations from Broadway to the London Palladium. He created a classical Elizabethan stage with side and back entrances below and staircases descending from the prominent central balcony.
When the stage needed replacememt a few years later, the Catskill Watershed Corporation provided a grant for a more permanent structure, which has been the company’s outdoor home ever since.
Last year’s production, As You Like It, featured two young women who were so outstanding as Rosalind and Celia, that they have been brought back to explore similar themes of cross-dressing and mistaken identity in Twelfth Night.
“They do magic on the stage,” said Michaels. “It was the actors that propelled me to say we should do Twelfth Night.” Molly Fleming will play the shipwrecked Viola, who disguises herself as a man and takes the name Cesario to obtain a job with Duke Orsino, played by Bobby Fleming, Molly’s husband. Sandra Cummings will appear as Olivia, who falls in love with Cesario when s/he woos her on behalf of Orsino.
The poetry of Shakespeare’s words can be challenging, but there’s a curious pleasure concentrating to the point where you let the lines flow through you. A plot synopsis appears in the program in case the language washes over your head.
Aston-Reese recalled the first classical play he was involved with when he stage-managed a summer stock production of She Stoops to Conquer, the 1773 comedy by Oliver Goldsmith. “My untrained ears couldn’t understand a word,” he said. “Then the show was extended an extra week, and by the second week, I understood. The writer was using words in an unfamiliar pattern, and I suddenly started to hear it.”
When directing Shakespeare, Aston-Reese spends a lot of time making sure the actors understand the sense of the words. “An actor can know what he’s saying, but he has to use Shakespeare’s exact words connected to the meaning. He writes in word-thoughts. It challenges that part of our brain that puts sentences together. He doesn’t hand it to you on a platter, but he’s a brilliant playwright.”
Audience members are invited to bring chairs (some are available for rent) or blankets to sit on the lawn. Many attendees pack a picnic. Admission is free, with a requested donation of $10 when the hat is passed at intermission.
If you have kids who like theater, they may be riveted by the spectacle. My daughter was. And if not, you haven’t wasted money on pricey tickets or tortured other audience members with a wriggling little one. A walk around the grounds with a parent makes a nice break for restless kids.
Shows are canceled only in case of torrential downpours, so check the weather before heading out. Remember there are shows each weekend in August on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, through September 1. If it rains, you’ll get another chance. Performances start at 5:30, so there’s time to eat at a local restaurant afterwards.
The Comeau property is on Comeau Drive off Route 212 near the center of the hamlet of Woodstock.
Join the family! 
