What might be a typical Shakespeare in the Park event takes a plunge instead with GreenHouse Theatre Project’s production of “LAKE//SHAKES,” which opened Thursday night.
A continuance of artistic director Elizabeth Braaten Palmieri’s 2021 COVID-safe outdoor season, the show is an hourlong presentation of scenes from five Shakespeare plays — all performed in a local, privately owned lake.
Going south on U.S. 63, left on a country road, past cornfields, onto gravel paths and into the woods, the journey to the lake takes visitors away from the normal hustle and bustle and into a secluded nature area. The lake is on private property owned by GreenHouse board members Abby Arauz and Jack Chase.
The sylvan setting and break from reality is heightened by the selected scenes: dreamy visions that appear in the water, on the shore, in boats and on a dock.
Palmieri chose moments from five plays that would be enhanced by the water. “Twelfth Night” and “The Tempest” famously center around waterways and oceans, but scenes selected from “Romeo and Juliet,” “Much Ado About Nothing” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” take on new shapes in the unusual setting.