Pack your picnic, folding chair and fencing foil. Montana Shakespeare in the Parks is bringing live theater to the Summer Festival at Pavillion Park for the fifth consecutive year. The Aug. 22 production will offer the poetry, swordplay and everyman aspirations of Edmond Rostand's "Cyrano de Bergerac."

In Pavillion Park's outdoor setting, audiences can integrate their outdoor experiences into professional theater and break its traditional taboos. While enjoying swordfights, French costumes, and brash and romantic 19th-century poetry, families can head over to a splash pad, a skate park, and tennis and basketball courts. The Liberty Lake Kiwanis will sell concessions. 

"The event atmosphere is relaxed, fun, enjoyable and accessible for all ages," Friends of Pavillion Park Board Member Laura Frank wrote in an email. 

Combining theater and the outdoors creates a unique participatory experience for Montana Shakespeare. Each season, they select the 10 best actors from the more than 500 auditions solicited nationwide. Most of these professional actors work in dark theaters in big cities like Chicago and New York, "and they feel a certain disconnect between them and the audience," said Montana Shakespeare Artistic Director Kevin Asselin. "In daylight, the audience is truly one with the actors. There's no fourth wall, and we tell the story together." 

This classic beauty and the beast tale follows Cyrano, a talented poet with a large nose, who loves Roxanne, a woman beyond his means. He writes love poems to her through the attractive Christian, with whom Roxanne falls in love. Cyrano's ugly nose limits his social status, and Cyrano settles insults to his appearance through sword duels. 

"He's an everyman who lives by the pen and the sword," Asselin said.

But performing outside presents challenges. June and July's heat did not spare the company, clad in period costumes of authentic materials. A long swordfight early in the play between Valvert and Cyrano "puts a lot of wear on our actors," Asselin said. They are also a skeleton staff, and the play is only part of the day for the actors, who build and strike the set and only take three days off for the summer.

Despite the grueling heat and schedule, actors and audience enter Cyrano's world together. The swordplay and costumes root this production in time and give it a sense of adventure. In that opening fight scene, "Valvert is in this pompous, arrogant costume littered with fleurs-de-lis," Asselin said. He hears children "giggle every time they watch a swordfight on stage." Their delight gets them closer to the play's language, what Asselin refers to as its "heightened text." 

Cyrano issues brash challenges to would-be duelers and relates love poems to Christian underneath Roxanne's balcony. 

"He's so specific in his use of poetry to color sarcasm and onomatopoeia to show the emotion and sounds he's experiencing," Asselin said. 

But like many pre-modern plays reminiscent of Shakespeare, we struggle to tune in our contemporary ears. 

"What I encourage the audience to do is to allow their ears to adjust to the language in the same way we have to allow our eyes to adjust to a dark room," Asselin said. 

Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, an outreach program of Montana State University's College of Arts and Architecture, has plenty of experience connecting with audiences. Based in Bozeman, Mont., it is staging its 43rd season in mostly rural Northwest communities. 

Although Liberty Lake is not rural, Asselin values the mission of providing well produced, high-quality theater here. For Frank, it "is a great introduction to both live theater and Shakespeare for children and attendees of all ages!"

Audience members familiar with other classical works will recognize Cyrano as an everyman. 

"Cyrano's character is similar to that of Hamlet," Asselin said. 

Struggling for recognition, he is by turns sarcastic, brooding and sentimental. He seeks the drama of war and the intimacy of relationships. He "uses his heroicism and valiant behavior to mask certain levels of insecurities." Ultimately, Cyrano recognizes that status doesn't bring happiness and learns to live well through words. 

As for the rural part of its mission, Asselin said the 19th-century French setting highlights life in the Northwest through Cyrano's "romantic sense of adventure and love." He compares Cyrano's sense of adventure to the way rural communities choose to live among beautiful landscapes where life is more challenging and less financially rewarding. 

"There's no better place to be embracing both those words and nature simultaneously," Asselin said. 

To keep its performances accessible to these communities, Montana Shakespeare's performances are free. They are subsidized by corporations, federal and state grants, and donations collected at performances, which, according to Asselin, make up 35 percent of the budget. 

Frank is proud of the support and reaction Liberty Lake has given Montana Shakespeare. 

A past group of audience members told Frank that if Friends of Pavillion Park didn't reprise Montana Shakespeare, "they would start a collection to fund it."

With the traveling theater returning to Liberty Lake, Friends of Pavillion Park is promoting the best viewing experience possible. They are designating the closest sections by seating type "to help optimize viewing," Frank said. "So if you want to be close to the action, bring a blanket or low-back chair." 

There are also new restrooms this year, but parking at Pavillion Park is limited. Overflow parking can be found at Liberty Lake Elementary School at North Molter Road and East Boone Avenue.

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