Park Performances

After the massive success of Paul Chan’s November staging of Waiting for Godot in New Orleans’s Ninth Ward, one hopes theater companies across the nation will begin to see the potential for outdoor performances. Just imagine Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman in the lobby of an aborted condominium project, or Molière’s The Misanthrope on Lincoln Road. How about Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex on the steps of the American Airlines Arena? (The last point being that Oedipus gauging out his own eyes could be interpreted as a response to watching Shaq shoot free-throws.) Until then, we at least have the singular pleasure of Shakespeare’s greatest comedy, Much Ado About Nothing, performed as part of the annual Shakespeare

The combination of the Bard and a municipal grassy knoll never gets old, especially when the featured play is about infidelity and its horned twin, cuckoldry. The word nothing, in Elizabethan English, was slang for female genitalia, but even if that pun goes over your head, you can watch it sail past under a beautiful Miami winter sky. Be sure to bring a blanket or low-back beach chair, and pack a picnic dinner.

Fri., Jan. 18, 2008