NO MAN’S LAND

BY HAROLD PINTER DIRECTED BY LES

Theater

Opening

R Shakespearean shaggy dog

Midsommer Flight’s Cymbeline is pleasant nonsense.

For Midsommer Flight’s tenth annual production of free Shakespeare in Chicago’s parks, the company has chosen as shaggy a dog story as the Bard had in his quiver. In ancient Britain, Princess Imogen secretly weds Posthumus to get out of marrying her stepmother’s odious son, Cloten. What follows includes (but is not limited to) alleged adultery, gender-switching disguise, long-thought-dead princes reappearing, a beheading, magical potions, and much, much politicking.

Directed with spirit by founding artistic director Beth Wolf, this is the kind of thing that will live or die by the cast’s commitment to buy into a narrative that strains credulity, to put it mildly. Fortunately, everyone involved is equal to the task. As I sat in my folding chair in the bucolic Chicago Women’s Park in the South Loop among clusters of picnickers, it occurred to me that this was as period-correct a setting to take in this kind of entertainment as was possible in the 21st century.

The ridiculous twists and turns of a story like this were long ago co-opted by daytime TV, then prestige streamers, but watching enthusiastic young people run around swinging swords in a city park is much more satisfying than bingeing yet another piece of recycled intellectual property. As a character remarks near the happily-ever-a er conclusion, “Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.” I can’t imagine summer crowds having a bad time taking in this pleasant nonsense.

DMITRY SAMAROV CYMBELINE Through 8/13: Fri-Sat 6 PM, Sun 2 PM; 7/14-7/16, Gross Park, 2708 W. Lawrence; 7/21-7/23, Kelvyn Park, 4438 W. Wrightwood; 7/28-7/30, Harold Washington Park, 5200 S. Hyde Park Blvd.; 8/4-8/6, Lincoln Park, 2045 N. Lincoln Park West; 8/11-8/13, Touhy Park, 7348 N. Paulina; midsommerflight.com, free, but donations accepted.

R Spongeworthy

The SpongeBob Musical is a goofy excursion.

The SpongeBob Musical had its pre-Broadway run here in 2016. I missed that, but I can’t imagine it was any more delightful than what Kokandy Productions has concocted in the basement at the Chopin. Stephen Hillenburg’s Nickelodeon series about the plucky and absorbent title character inspired this toe-tapping, whimsical explosion featuring songs by a murderers’ row of artists, including David Bowie and Brian Eno, Cyndi Lauper, Panic! at the Disco, and (in a delightful send-up of themselves as personified by “the Electric Skates”), Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, who contributed “Bikini Bottom Boogie.”

JD Caudill’s staging leans into the challenging close quarters of the environment. Jonathan Berg-Einhorn’s minimalist but evocative set makes us feel like we are in fact surrounded by a shiny kelp forest. But though the space is small, the performances are generous, expansive, and perfectly synched, aided by Bryan McCaffrey’s musical direction and a tight five-piece live band. (Ele Matelan’s live foley work is also superb throughout.)

Frankie Leo Bennett’s SpongeBob is the optimistic-toa-fault center of the story, but all the residents of Bikini Bottom get their moment to shine, including Isabel Cecilia García’s lovably dopey Patrick Star, Quinn Rigg’s loose-limbed and ever-eager-for-the-spotlight Squidward, and Parker Guidry’s Sheldon J. Plankton, Bikini Bottom’s answer to Boris Badenov.

It’s interesting to note the nods in the storyline to xenophobia and anti-science, both of which affect Sarah Patin’s Sandy Cheeks, the squirrel seismologist whose warnings about the imminent blow-up of Mount Humongous, which forms the spine of the plot, are met with vicious anti-land-mammal rhetoric. But this isn’t a show straining for a message. Instead, it’s a mostly family-friendly sojourn under the sea with familiar characters and some kicky tunes. There are points where it threatens to take on some narrative seawater, but the heartfelt silliness adds up to a very pleasant theatrical excursion.

—KERRY

Reid The Spongebob Musical

Through 9/3: Thu-Sat 7 PM, Sun 5 PM; Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division, kokandyproductions.com, $40 (students and seniors $30; limited number of $15 rush tickets for artists and students also available for each performance) v