Bard’s Odd Play in an Odd Place : Theater: Aye, ‘Pericles,’ forsooth, when set to blend with cappuccino--Couldst thou start a trend?

Why “Pericles”?

Coral Suter, who is directing a production of Shakespeare’s seldom-seen “Pericles, Prince of Tyre” at various city coffeehouses and the Church at Ocean Park in Santa Monica, says that is the wrong question.

“ ‘Are you insane?’ That is the question,” Suter says. “ ‘Pericles’ in coffeehouses? Have you gone mad?”

Suter, a Mar Vista resident with a master’s degree in theater from the California Institute of the Arts, is known in Los Angeles stage circles for productions of modern plays, especially those of Harold Pinter.

She has become accustomed to having to justify her desire to present one of Shakespeare’s least-known and often-disparaged later plays. “I came up with this long rationale: Well, the later work is really good, blah, blah, blah,” she says.

“But the truth is that a friend of mine got very involved in the debate of who had actually written Shakespeare’s plays, and we were talking about the later work. I’ve loved ‘The Tempest’ since I was a child, and then I saw a production in New York of ‘A Winter’s Tale’ that made me cry, it was so good. And I thought, gosh, I wonder about ‘Pericles.’ ”

Suter read the play, and like many before her, was struck with its unusual structure. “The first two acts are strange,” she says. “They’re lovely, but they’re strange. But before I got to the third act, I was determined to do it, and not only that, but I was going to do it in coffeehouses. The two ideas were wedded, and it was there full-blown.”

The connection is not really so odd. The story of Pericles--a prince who sets out on a quest to find a princess, and when he finds her, all hell breaks loose--is 3,000 years old. It has been handed down as part of the oral tradition of many Mediterranean countries. It is declaimed as myth to this day in the hills of Greece. Shakespeare’s was merely one telling of the tale. Why not tell it in the coffeehouses of Los Angeles?

“This is the prime dramatic teller of tales in the English language telling this 3,000-year-old myth,” says Suter. “Everybody says he’s done it wrong; it’s not been a well-liked play, but you can see Shakespeare’s hand all the way through. He has this tremendous contrast of high drama with almost buffoonery; he’ll have people at the height of passion suddenly make a joke or notice how absurd they are. It was difficult, but I realized that he can be trusted; he really knows what he’s doing.”

Presented under the auspices of Mean Noises Productions, a nonprofit company founded in 1981 by graduates of CalArts, the play features a cast of actors only too pleased to be performing Shakespeare under any circumstances.

Sharon Saks, a North Hollywood resident who left San Francisco nine years ago to pursue an acting career, is a former dancer who last year had her own monthly cable-access comedy show, “You Don’t Know Me, But.” Though more used to sketch-improv comedy, she says, “This is my first full-length Shakespeare, and I didn’t know it would be this much fun.”

John Timmons, who lives in Van Nuys, is a veteran of Shakespeare productions in New York and his native Philadelphia. “The real discipline in doing this in coffeehouses is in the concentration,” he says. “As your physical world gets smaller, you have to make the world on stage more intimate. I’ve worked in dinner theaters, which are notorious for serving food and drinks while you’re performing, but it seems that the people in coffeehouses here really are more respectful and interested in what we have to say.”

Cuban-born Victor Marcel of Mar Vista has also performed Shakespeare many times, and he relishes playing seven different roles in the small performing space. “No costume changes, no makeup,” he says, “so my job is to use characterization, changes of voice, changes of rhythm, so that the audience sees seven different people.”

Gina de Lagerheim, who is from Colorado and now lives in Altadena, not only hasn’t performed the Bard before, she has never stepped on a stage. A production manager for seven years, de Lagerheim decided to take the plunge as Marina, the king’s daughter, when her friend, director Suter, suggested it.

“It’s hard when you have an ego, and you want to do everything perfectly,” she says. “But I went in there and made some mistakes and just dove in with everything I had. I absolutely love it.”

Suter says simply, “I have been blessed with a cast beyond my hopes,” although she agrees that watching ‘Pericles’ calls for a commitment on the part of audiences.

At a little more than three hours, including three intermissions, the play is demanding. “We’re asking people to listen and take the visual imagery into their imaginations,” Suter says. “You must get through the first two difficult acts. The build in this play is really in the fourth and fifth acts, and when you get there, the whole thing makes sense with a really beautiful emotional payoff.”

* ‘PERICLES’

“Pericles, Prince of Tyre” is playing Wednesdays at 8 p.m. at Discafe Bohem, 4430 Fountain Ave., Hollywood, through Aug. 11; tickets are $6. It is performed Thursday and Friday nights at 8 p.m. at the Church at Ocean Park, 235 Hill St., Santa Monica, through Aug. 13; tickets are $9. And it is performed Sundays at 7 p.m. at the Storyteller, 22047 Sherman Way, Canoga Park, through Aug. 15; tickets are $10 and include dessert. Information: (310) 391-2723.