Royal Shakespeare: Have stage, will travel

When Jonjo O'Neill first saw the Park Avenue Armory, he was surprised.

"It's breathtaking, just . . . the size of it," he says. "It kind of makes me feel like a kid."

O'Neill, a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, arrived in New York recently with 40 other actors from the renowned troupe to perform five Shakespeare plays in repertory (plus two more for young audiences) in six weeks. "As You Like It" and "Romeo and Juliet" opened earlier this month, "King Lear" opened Saturday night, and "The Winter's Tale" and "Julius Caesar" premiere in the next two weeks, with actors playing multiple roles and plays alternating day to day, running through Aug. 14.

What makes the event unprecedented is that the company has brought along its own auditorium -- a three-tiered, 975-seat replica of the Elizabethan-style theater where they perform in Stratford-upon-Avon. It stands inside the Armory's airplane-hangar-sized drill hall.

New Yorkers are no strangers to Shakespeare, but it's fair to say they've never seen it done quite like this -- not without booking round-trip airfare to Britain.

The tempest

And not without stressing over weather. The Delacorte Theater, home to New York's beloved Shakespeare in the Park, is an open-air amphitheater; and Shakespeare's Globe in London, a replica of the theater where Willie's plays were first performed, is only partially covered. But the armory's 55,000-square-foot drill hall boasts a stormproof, 80-foot-high, barrel-vaulted roof.

"We're the closest thing to an outdoor public space . . . that doesn't have a rain date problem," says Rebecca Robertson, president of the Park Avenue Armory, co-producers of the program with the Lincoln Center Festival, in association with Ohio State University. (Seems the Buckeyes have a long-standing partnership with the RSC.)

The stage, as in Shakespeare's day, thrusts into the house, with seating on three sides "in spitting distance of the action," says Robertson. The farthest seat is just 49 feet from the stage. "It's the way you should see Shakespeare," she says. "Intimate and close-up."

Measure for measure

The "flat-pack" theater was constructed in England, disassembled, shipped to the States in 46 40-foot containers, then reconstructed in less than three weeks.

By the numbers, it's an impressive endeavor, with 19,000 bolts, 390 tons of steel, plus 425 costumes, 20 wigs, 40 liters of blood and five tins of lychees used to simulate, um, eyeballs.

("Lear" and "Caesar" can get intense, notes RSC artistic director Michael Boyd.)

Sail-like acoustic material hangs over rafters and back walls, deadening sound from outside and reflecting sound inside, "allowing the audience to hang on every word," says RSC technical director Geoff Locker.

All's well that ends well

For the performers, who've been working together as an ensemble for a three-year stint, this marks the end of a journey.

"To end up in New York with all your mates -- we're excited," says O'Neill, who plays Orlando in "As You Like It" and Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet."

A few hours before curtain earlier this month, O'Neill sits with fellow actor Katy Stephens outside the drill hall in a mahogany-paneled room with checkerboard tables. (Audiences relax here preshow and during intermission.)

"We call them draughts," says Stephens, referring to the checkers.

She plays Regan in "King Lear," and Rosalind (considered Shakespeare's biggest female role) in "As You."

"Rosalind is a real challenge," she says. "Like a three-hour aerobics class."

It's the New York debut for both actors, who are enjoying local audiences.

"They're far more vocal," says Stephens, "Less shy, less restrained." Especially compared to London audiences, who can appear blasé, O'Neill concurs.

An added perk? Playing tourist.

Stephens loved the July Fourth fireworks. And O'Neill "went to Coney Island, got on the roller coaster, ate Nathan's hot dogs -- it was brilliant!"

A midsummer night's dream

Why haul a theater across the Atlantic? It's partly practical, says Boyd -- when putting up shows quickly, it helps to know the stage. But, more important, it's the way to really GET Shakespeare, he insists. With an audience wrapped round the stage, in full view.

"I hope people wave at each other," says Boyd, who relishes the idea that theater -- this one, in particular -- can be interactive in a way that film never is.

"Theater happens in the space between the actors and the audience," he says.

Sound distracting? At a recent performance of "As You Like It," one could see across the stage a Buddha-like man, arms folded, in an orange polo shirt; a woman storing tissues in her bra; a young man with a perpetual smile, enjoying every second.

In a play full of quirky characters, these folks were like extras in the cast, and their laughter and responses seemed to enhance the action onstage.

"When you have a big space like ours, artists create these amazing worlds," says Robertson, recalling previous Armory events like the opera "Die Soldaten," on a runway stage with audience seats rolling on railroad-like tracks; or a modern sculpture exhibit, with a labyrinth of covered walkways for visitors to explore.

"Generally in theaters, the audience disappears -- you're the anonymous observer," says Robertson. "But what we do here is never like that. You're, in fact, part of it."

This theater has a built-in history

The Park Avenue Armory was built between 1877 and 1881 by the National Guard's Seventh Regiment, the first militia to respond to President Abraham Lincoln's call for Civil War volunteers in 1861. Besides the drill hall, there are smaller, sumptuous rooms designed by Louis C. Tiffany and Stanford White, where the regiment socialized during the Gilded Age, and which are open to the public.

Stroll the Veterans Room, with its columns, stained glass and beamed ceiling; the Field and Staff Room, with giant moose heads; or the library, with military medals.

Proud, mutton-chopped men peer from portraits, like the baby-faced J. Fred Pierson, shot in the chest in the Battle of Chancellorsville while leading a charge. (He survived, and was promoted to brigadier general.)

All this, plus snacks and checkers. But for one evening, at least, call them "draughts," like the Brits do.

WHAT Royal Shakespeare Company performs a series of the Bard's best (plays vary by day and time).

WHEN|WHERE Thursdays-Sundays (and some Tuesdays and Wednesdays), through Aug. 14, Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Ave. (at East 66th Street)

INFO $81.50-$250 (evenings), $68.75-$250 (matinees); 212-721-6500, lincolncenterfestival.org. Twenty-five percent of ticket price is a tax-deductible donation to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.