Door County Shakes

Ancillary Intro
July’s trip North to Door County was going to be significantly cheaper than the trip to Spring Green in June for a variety of reasons. I was scheduled to cover both of Door Shakespeare’s shows this season. Since Door Shakespeare doesn’t do matinees, the idea was to see each show on a different evening. For reasons not worth getting into here, that meant spending two nights in Door County. We’d arranged to stay with a friend up there. Hillary, who used to work with my wife had purchased a café and told us we wee welcome to stay there. Things being what they were, we didn’t know exactly where her café was when we set out on the trip north.

Proper Intro
Very little can be said about Highway I-43. The best hat can be said about it is that it is not I-94, which does little to clear matters up at all. The drive north is relatively uneventful. The eastern edge of the state looks little different than any other stretch of highway in the lower 48.

Anyway . . .
Somewhere along the line, my wife and I are North of Denmark and I’m really starting to almost sort of relax. We stop off in Green Bay for a bite to eat with some of my wife’s family. It’s an odd little historic place with a mishmash of interior design styles dating back decades. I feel vaguely like I’m in a Marx Brothers movie for the duration of lunch. After some brief socializing, we’re off further north to Wisconsin’s Lower Peninsula.

And Then . . .
The Lower Peninsula is only a few miles wide, but it is several miles long. Door County covers most of the Peninsula. It’s not a densely-populated area, but there area lot of places for a café to hide and my wife and I have only the foggiest idea of where we’re staying. Going North a town with a name like Sturgeon Bay gives over to a town with a name like Carlsville. We reach Egg Harbor and elect to find a tourist center for possible information about Hillary’s café.

An Aside . . .
It should be pointed out that Door County is a tourist destination. Truly there is very little business that goes on here that isn’t tourism of some form, so there’s a tourist information stop about once every couple of miles along the main stretches. Somehow, we have difficulty finding one in Egg Harbor. Luckily, we stumble into The Bridge: the coffeshop Hillary just bought.

The Bridge
Hillary’s purchase of the café came through just a few days prior to our arrival, but she bought a café that had already been up and running for years, so it was up and running by the time we got there. The view from the Bridge is beautiful. The rest of the place is nice too: Fair trade coffee on the ground floor. Books on the second floor. Wi-Fi throughout. It’s like a smokeless East Side cafe with a view of Green Bay (the body of water, not the town.) My wife and are shown where we are staying: a living room like area below the café that doubles as a stock room. It’s cozy enough, but we’re going to be spending much of the time outside . . .

Beyond Egg Harbor
The first evening, we’re set to see Door Shakespeare’s Cyrano. Door Shakespeare is just across the Peninsula in Bailey’s Harbor. The middle of the Peninsula is much less populated than the coasts. Long stretch of highway dive through vast plains. There’s not much to see, and with no street lights, it’s like another world at night—a purgatory with a strip of concrete running through it lit only by passing headlights.

Door Shakespeare
Door Shakespeare starts before nightfall. Regardless of whether you’re traveling north or south to get there, it’s kind of easy to miss. It’s a densely wooded area with lots of signs to distract tourists. We keep our eyes peeled for the Door Shakes sign traveling along highway 57. Hillary agreed to come to the show, which makes us feel like we’ve got a native with us, but she’s never been to Door Shakespeare so it’s a false sense of comfort, u we make it there anyway.

Once you turn into the road leading to Door Shakespeare, there’s a long an winding journey ahead. The fully paved road leading from 57 is new as of this year, making for a comfortable journey out to the parking lot—which is really just a particularly flat clearing in the woods. There are no standard restrooms for patrons—only the plastic portable ones, which gives the outdoor theatre experience kind of an intrepid campground feel not found in every outdoor theatre environment.

Door Shakespeare’s production of Cyrano was solid enough to entertain Hillary…a woman who rarely attends theatre and doesn’t like to sit still for long periods of time. I figure this says about as much as I can about how good the production was.

The setting is very informal. My wife and Ihad the opportunity to speak with actor Luke Leonhart during intermission. Since the stage here is only implied, things are quite open. A drive in from 57 before a show can feel quite like any other drive through a forest until you spot an actor in full period costume. It’s a bit of a shock the first time . . .

The Blue Ox
Being a resort area, it’s a bit strange that so much of Door County closes-up after dark. After the show, my wife and I went to one of the few bars open that night. We’d expected to hang out with the locals. A few of the other patrons were from Chicago. The guy behind the bar spends his winters working a resort outside Telluride, Colorado. There’s a vaguely artificial feel about things. We’re in a bar named after the pet of a legend who made a name for himself shilling for the Red River Lumber Company.

A Midsummer Night in Midsummer
The next evening, my wife and I went alone to see the Shakespeare end of this year’s Door Shakespeare season: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Though some of the costuming was quite silly, the production was quite solid and features some of the best comedy put onstage in the past year. Though there was expected to be drizzle the night of the performance, there really wasn’t any. The show started before nightfall. The atmosphere felt vaguely moist and humid. Normally one would expect mosquitoes in them middle of the woods, but a local company had cleaned them up, so there really aren’t any bites. I’m not sure what kind of technology the company uses to suck all of the mosquitoes out of a wooded area near a major body of water, but whatever it is doesn’t rid the area of all the insects. In the final act, a small civilization of what I can only refer to as “aphids” swarmed the lights. It’s only a minor distraction, though. I remember going to Ravinia outside Chicago a few times . . . there they have crickets. It’s a bit strange to hear a major symphony performing in tandem with a group of offstage crickets. Next to THAT distraction, quiet swarms of aphids are hardly significant.