If you like outdoor theater but you can't stand the heat of a Kansas City summer, the Gorilla Theatre has a deal for you.
Before the sun climbs too high in the sky on Saturday and Sunday, catch the theater company's annual Sunrise Greek Show, staged at the Wheeler Amphitheater in Theis Park, commonly called Volker Park. For a decade, the members of the 13-year-old Gorilla Theatre have produced a classical Greek play in an outdoor setting as a living monument to the foundations of Western theater.
This year's offering, The Clouds by Aristophanes, made its debut last weekend around the summer solstice, as Greek tradition calls for. The Greeks staged performances to honor the longest day of the year, and they chose dawn because temperatures are lower then, said Tyler Miller, a theater board member who is producing The Clouds.
The works of the ancient Greek playwrights form the basis of modern theater, from Shakespeare to the modern situation comedy. The Greeks perfected theater as a way to express themselves, developing works with more than one character and a "chorus" that often provided a moral compass for the audience.
The Clouds is Aristophane's satire of Socrates and the sophists. It tells the story of Strepsiades, a man in deep debt because of his son's addiction to gambling. He approaches Socrates, the great teacher, for advice on how to rid himself of this debt. But he uses unjust logic, attempting to use the law to circumvent his problem. In the end, his actions bring him more grief when his ne'er-do-well son physically abuses him, the epitome of disrespect in the Greek world. So Strepsiades burns down Socrates' home as his revenge.
The cast of the The Clouds includes Chris Johnson as Strepsiades, Jerome Stark as Socrates, Caroline Oates as Lead Cloud and Darren Sextro as Aristophanes. Dan DeMott directs the play, with Jessica Reeves as assistant director, Carol Leighton as stage manager and Richard Van Cleave as set designer. David Brisco Luby is artistic director of the theater.