MICHELE NORRIS, host: What sound through yonder window breaks? Why, it's the latest entry in our series Summer Sounds.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LARRY LANEER: My name is Larry Laneer, and I write about theater for the Oklahoma Gazette. Here's an oft heard sound of summer: Shakespeare in the Park.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "AS YOU LIKE IT")
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (as Orlando) Here, lie I down and measure out my grave.
LANEER: It's a mash up between Shakespeare and modern civilization. It was a pretty good sight gag the first time I saw actors onstage in Elizabethan costumes stop, look up, and marvel at a loud, low-flying jet plane.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "AS YOU LIKE IT")
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: I thank you and I'll be blest for your good comfort.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLANE)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: We are not all alone (unintelligible)
LANEER: Within time, a motorcycle convention roared by.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "AS YOU LIKE IT")
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: (as Jacques) All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players.
LANEER: And police helicopters chopper to and fro.
(SOUNDBITE OF HELICOPTERS)
LANEER: The actors always soldier on, suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and take up arms against a sea of troubles, 400 years of mechanical and technological advancements, and William's words still cut through the din.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "AS YOU LIKE IT")
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (as Celia) Shall we be a sundered? Shall we part, sweet girl? No, let my father seek another heir
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
NORRIS: The summer sound of Shakespeare from Larry Laneer of Norman, Oklahoma.
This is NPR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.