by Jenny Anderson | Special to the Courier

Does the thought of sitting through a performance of Shakespeare in the park make you yawn or wince? Francis Beaumont wrote “The Knight of the Burning Pestle” in 1607 for people like you.

Ophelia’s Jump’s delightful and hilarious 2024 Midsummer Shakespeare Festival rendition of the play does justice to Beaumont’s original conception. This absurd, experimental play turns on the conceit that the household of a London grocer takes over the stage in rebellion against a stale and wooden plot. The ensuing drama becomes the struggle to control the stage between the professional actors with their scripted play and the grocer-citizen who puts his adolescent apprentice Rafe on stage to improvise.

The grocer is reacting against anti-merchant stereotypes that dominated London city comedies of the day (“Jacobean” London). Such caricatures are epitomized by the rich merchant Venturewell, the miserly killjoy in the play that the grocer and his household interrupt. To counter such negative representations of merchants and tradesmen, the grocer inserts his theatrically gifted apprentice, Rafe, to present the honor of the grocer’s company. Rafe’s dramatic vehicle is the fiction of a grocer-errant who pursues chivalric quests to assist damsels in distress and defeat monsters and giants. Every time Rafe enacts his extravagantly imaginative exploits, he interrupts the professional actors performing the originally scripted play, to the growing aggravation and annoyance of the actors trying to complete their performance.

The cast of Francis Beaumont’s “The Knight of the Burning Pestle” takes its final bows July 11 at Pomona College’s Sontag Greek Theatre, as part of Ophelia’s Jump’s Midsummer Shakespeare Festival, which runs through Sunday, July 21. Photo/by Randy Lopez

While the audience may occasionally share the actors’ annoyance with the intrusive grocer, the delight of improvisation and the exuberant creativity and vitality of the grocer eventually win over their enthusiasm. In the course of the performance, the play becomes about a third thing, not the originally scripted play of Venturewell vs. Merrythought, nor the apprentice Rafe’s chivalric fantasies, but the joy of live theater, the improvisatory imagination, and the audience’s willingness to engage in fictive worlds.

This is pointedly demonstrated at a moment in the Ophelia’s Jump production when the action calls for audience participation onstage. Several children in the audience excitedly volunteered, and one youngster improvised the part of the giant Barberoso with gusto. As in Beaumont’s original play, the production is punctuated with music throughout.

Ophelia’s Jump have updated topical references and musical choices to convey their significance. A full-throated chorus of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” brings home the ultimate spirit of Beaumont’s play, which is a celebration of theater, togetherness, entertainment, and the coexistence of different social tastes and fantasies.

The play features many strong performances, well-pitched to the burlesque nature of the stage action. The stagecraft of entrances, exits, fictional locations, and the integration of recurrently intrusive embedded audience is handled admirably. This play demands a sophistication from the audience regarding stage conventions and tropes, and the raucous laughter of the playgoers at the semi-circular outdoor amphitheater of the Pomona College Sontag Theater on Saturday, July 13 indicated a crowd that followed the performance every hilarious step of the way through a “coup de théatre.”

“The Knight of the Burning Pestle” and “La Tempestad” are part of Ophelia’s Jump’s Midsummer Shakespeare Festival. Directed by Caitlin Lopez, “The Knight of the Burning Pestle” repeats at 8 p.m. Sunday, July 21. The Friday, July 19 performance has been cancelled due to illness. Ticket holders can exchange them for the 8 p.m. Sunday, July 21 show, or either of the two remaining performances of “La Tempestad,” directed by Beatrice Casagrán, which runs at 8 p.m. Thursday, July 18 and Saturday, July 20. Tickets for both shows are at opheliasjump.org/midsummer-shakespeare-festival.

Claremont resident Jenny Andersen is a professor of English at California State University, San Bernardino.