Play Review: A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, directed by Mark Rucker.

[juushika]

On our recent trip to Ashland, my mother, father, and I saw two plays. First, and an evening performance, was Midsummer Night's Dream. It was a Thursday night, and there were many visiting high schools (and some younger) come to see the performance. Of course Shakespeare is my true love, and so I was most excited to see this play. However, this was Midsummer with a twist: set not in Elizabethan England or Athens, the play takes place instead in the American 1950s-1970s.

(Picture at right is by Jenny Graham and copyright the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It features Fairy Queen Titania and Fairy King Oberon.)

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, directed by Mark Rucker, Angus Bowmer Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival 2008.

In the city of Thebes, unrest disrupts the human world: on the eve of the Duke's wedding, the maiden Hermia refuses to marry her suitor Demetrius, preferring instead her lover Lysander; Hermia's Helena friend dotes on Demetrius, who once loved her but now spurns her love. When Hermia and Lysander flee the city, Helena and Demetruis follow them into the forest and into the realm of the fairy court where Fairy Queen Tatiania and King Oberon fight over a human changeling boy. Meanwhile, an amateur troupe prepares a play for the Duke's wedding. In the fairy wood they all meet, tangled together by the mischievous fairy Puck who crosses lovers and sends them all into foolish antics.

One of Shakespeare's most famous and most performed plays, Midsummer sometimes begs for a twist to make the production unique, and the 2008 OSF production certainly delivers one: the play is set in the approximate 1950s-1970s era and features everything from tailored mod costumes to disco-dancing fairies. The festival's website (check the multimedia tab) illustrates this better than I can, but it is an effect that must be seen to be believed. Theseus (speaking Elizabethan English with a New York accent) and Hippolyta wear silver lamé and sit in ten-foot white wingback chairs; the acting troupe arrive on stage in a painted VW bus; Tatiania's fairy attendants wear tutus and dance the disco. At the end of the play, fishnet and glitter clad, wearing five inch platform heeled boots and a tutu, Puck sings his epilogue while the cast dances around him under glowing disco lights. The costume and setting is sometimes more subtle, as the four lovers first lose layers of clothing to mischievous fairies, and then find their white clothing dyed bright colors after their night in the woods.

The script and language are both, of course, strong. In general, the cast averages out at pretty good (lithe mischievous Puck and heavy-lidded masculine Oberon are both amazing; Bottom's self-conscious overacting soon becomes grating and a few of the fairy attendants feel immature) and the play rests at the level I expect from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival: skillful and artistic at the minimum. The play's worth is then decided by the bold, colorful, stylized setting. At some levels, I appreciate and enjoy the style. The fairies in particular are brought to life by their outlandish, stereotypically gay, glitter-coated antics, and the lovers's journey through the woods, losing clothing and gaining color, speaks well to the boundary breaking journey of the plot. However, the style is often so strong that it overshadows the story. The play within a play is too busy and Shakespeare's comic writing is lost within the exaggerated comic acting. Constant puns on wording, mummery scenes, and songs add to the play length and require (what I'm pretty sure I noticed were) some hasty changes to the text. Worst perhaps of all is Puck's epilogue, which is completely lost in the final song and dance number. Yes, the disco lights and mod furniture catch the eye, and the play is exciting and definitely roused our (quite young) audience to cheers. In the end, however, I'm not content with this production. I like the style and the concept, but—though it may be a sin to say—I wish all of that boldness had been toned down a bit to let the script itself shine through. I loved the gay fairies and the constant sexual tension between all the characters throughout, but would have preferred a play that was a bit more subtle, that embraced both the overhanging disco ball and the words of Shakespeare's script as written.