Giles Woodforde casts his eye over a trilogy of open-air Shakespeare

The sun may shine, or it could pour with rain. But since when have meteorological uncertainties squashed Oxford’s proud tradition of staging Shakespeare outdoors during the summer?

Certainly not this year, with Oxford Theatre Guild, the Oxford Shakespeare Company, and Tomahawk all due to open new productions under the open skies in the next few days.

In Merton College Fellows’ Garden, I meet set designer Jacqui Lewis, who is feeling the bark of a massive tree. The tree, and its three companions, will encircle Oxford Theatre Guild’s stage area, with a long flowerbed forming the backdrop. It all looks like a setting for, say, a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In fact, the Guild has opted to stage one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies, King Lear, and, Jacqui reveals, her set design will provide a deliberate contrast to its garden surroundings.

“It’s a marriage of two very strange parts!” she says. “You’ve got the apocalyptic scenes, which have smashed everything to pieces. We’ve gone for a subterranean feel, which is helped by setting the production under the trees. Then we’ve introduced an industrial theme by evoking the old Cowley car plant. So we’ve got broken sections of the bunker and of the factory.”

Across town, the Oxford Shakespeare Company is staging Twelfth Night in the leafy surroundings of Wadham College Gardens. A gypsy caravan is being rolled in to sit amongst Wadham’s trees and flowers.

“Our idea is to defy expectations and provide lots of contrasts,” OSC producer Charlotte Windmill explains. “In our production, when Viola and Sebastian wash up on the shores of Illyria after their shipwreck, they have to adapt fast to changing conditions, as do Olivia and Orsino. It becomes clear, for instance, that the Illyrian gypsies no longer live a nomadic life forever travelling in their caravans. They’ve become rooted in their surroundings.”

Tomahawk is showing a new production of Romeo and Juliet in Oxford Castle Courtyard, as part of the Castle’s annual Oxford Shakespeare Festival.

“We’ve cut the show to two hours,” director Alex Nicholls laughs when I mention that outdoor Romeos can seem a bit lengthy. “Of course, we often have lovely summer weather, but by about 9.30pm it’s usually beginning to cool off a bit.”

Surveying the Castle’s battlements, the militaristic setting feels right for a fight – in this case the battle between the Montague and Capulet families.

We’re going to have a set in front of the battlements, which will provide a balcony for Romeo and Juliet. But it does seem to me that, in the play, the Prince of Verona is operating a kind of police state, and is struggling to maintain order between the two rival, feuding families.

Oxford Theatre Guild and Tomahawk have indoor venues lined up should they become necessary, but spokeswoman Charlotte Windmill says: “We always perform outdoors for as long as the audience can bear it, or unless there’s an imminent danger of a lightning strike!”

King Lear: Merton College, July 7-18).
Twelfth Night: Wadham College, until August 15.
Romeo & Juliet: Oxford Castle, July 6-18