MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT DREAM AN EVENING OF MAGIC WITH PUCK LEADING THE BAND

Danny Scheie as "Pyramus", Dan Hiatt as "Wall", and Lance Gardner as "Thisbe" in California Shakespeare Theater's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Aaron Posner; photo by Jay Yamada.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, written by William Shakespeare, directed by Aaron Posner, Co produced by Two River Theater Company. California Shakespeare Theater (Cal Shakes), Bruns Amphitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda, CA 94563 (just off Highway 24 at the Shakespeare Festival Way/Gateway Exit, one mile east of the Caldecott Tunnel). 510.548.9666, or online at www.calshakes.org.

September 16 through October 11, and then move to New Jersey for a limited run.

MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT DREAM AN EVENING OF MAGIC WITH PUCK LEADING THE BAND

Cal Shakes’ closing show of their 2009 season has some very laudable attributes with good, but not great casting, and provides an evening of fun despite the fact that the promised balmy evening during our local heat wave was not forth coming. Director Aaron Posner, imported from the Two River Theater Company in New Jersey, has elected to use a relatively bare stage, cut some of Shakespeare’s lines, added modern dress/music and employed excessive physical action to garner laughs. It mostly works.

The remounting of this production tells the story of the vicissitudes of young obsessive love shaped by the real world and thrown in confusion in the magical forest world of fairies ruled by Oberon. Oddly, unless you count Puck (Doug Hara) as a fairy, Posner has dispensed with the fairies. After seeing, in Ashland, Mark Rucker’s depiction of the fairies as gay Folsom Street Fair characters dressed in drag, this may be a blessing. Who knows what Posner would envision? However, I digress.

In the real world, Helena (Lindsey Gates) loves Demetrius who is infatuated and wishes to marry Hermia (Erin Weaver) who loves Lysander (Avery Monsen). Hermia’s father Egeus (Dan Hyatt) appeals to ruler Theseus (Keith Randolph Smith entirely miscast as Oberon) to force Hermia to marry Demetrius. What are the star crossed lovers to do but run away and they do into world of the fairies. With Lysander and Hermia in hot pursuit everthing goes awry. Troublemaker Puck, Oberon’s sidekick, screws everything up with the magic potion.

Into this mix Shakespeare has thrown in a traveling band of actors who plan to perform at the upcoming wedding of Theseus to Hippolyta (Pegge Johnson). Included in that group is the egocentric Bottom (Danny Scheie) who is made into an Ass by Oberon to woe, bed and punish Queen of the fairies,Titania (Johnson again). You know the rest of the story.

Bringing in Doug Hara from Chicago’s Lookingglass Theater to play Puck is a stroke of genius. He holds the entire production together with his acting and fluid athleticism as he bounds about the floor of stage, into the aisle and atop the soaring rear set sharing space with a wooden moon. The young lovers do great justice to Posner’s use of physicality. It is the troupe of would be actors that includes Joan Mankin (Philostrate), Lance Gardner (Flute), Ted Barker (Starveling) and Patty Gallagher (Quince), Dan Hiatt as Snout and Danny Scheie as Bottom. Their presentation of the “tragic” love story of Pyramus and Thisbe is a hoot an’ a holler with enough shtick for an evening of stand-up comedy.

The entire production with special mentions listed above will partially warm the cockles of your heart even if the fog does roll in. Running time 2 hours and 30 minutes with intermission.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com