A Midsummer Night’s
Dream
William Shakespeare
 |
| Norman Gee, Jennifer Le Blanc & John R. Lewis |
Coming off recently winning four Theatre Bay Area Awards for
this past year’s Twelfth Night, the Arabian Shakespeare Festival opens A Midsummer Night’s Dream that should also
be a top prospect for both production and acting awards in the coming
year. Shakespeare’s oft-performed,
much-loved comedy of love spats and mishaps; fairy shenanigans; and a hilarious
play within the play performed by six hapless, lovable working blokes is normally
performed by large casts on grand stages – often outdoors – with spectacular
scenic effects and whimsical costumes.
The trademark of the Arabian Shakespeare Festival is to do
just the opposite and still to create a production that – in this case as in
past ones – literally sparkles, titillates, and thoroughly does The Bard mighty
proud. With a cast of six who each play
three parts, on a stage bare save some movable blocks of wood, and with
character identifications depending on singular elements like a leather cap, a
pair of black glasses, or a flinging pink scarf, ASF stages a Dream that matches and sometimes exceeds
the funny, fantastical, forested worlds of much-bigger productions.
 |
| Lindsey Marie Schmeltzer & Maeron Yeshiwas |
For someone who has not attended quite as many productions
as have I, let me provide a quick summary.
Duke Theseus of Athens is about to marry the Amazon queen,
Hippolyta. As they prepare for their
wedding, Hermia, who is secretly about to be engaged to Lysander, resists her
father’s insistence that she instead marry Demetrius who just broke up with her
best friend, Helena, because he loves Hermia.
Helena, on the other hand, only has eyes for Demetrius, who wants
nothing of her.
Hermia’s father is enraged and insists the Duke force his
daughter to marry his choice of Demetrius or condemn his daughter to death, as is
an ancient, Athenian law. The Duke
suggests a nunnery instead, leading Hermia to plan a late-night escape with her
intended Lysander. She tells Helena her
plans, who decides to betray her best friend to Demetrius, hoping foolishly
that he may repay her with more attention and maybe even love.
As all hell is about to break loose when the four mixed-up
lovers head to the forest, in the heavens above Oberon, King of the Fairies, voices
his frustration with his estranged wife, Titania, who is planning on attending
the Duke and Queen’s wedding. Oberon
plans with his trickster sidekick, Puck, a way to punish his wife by using a
flower’s potion to cause her to fall in love with the first beast of the forest
she sees after waking from a night of slumber.
Oberon wants to help the two couples roaming in the forest straighten
out their love issues and sends Puck on a mission also to remedy that situation,
which of course he will unwittingly only make worse.
In the third parallel story, six common laborers begin a
bumbling rehearsal of a play they hope to stage the night of the Duke’s
wedding. Their choice is an ill-fated
love story by Ovid, described by the tawdry troupe’s organizer, Quince, as “the
most lamentable comedy and the most terrible death of Pyramus and Thisbe.”
In any production of A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, there is much hilarity to come as Puck uses the
love flower potion to cause Lysander (not Demetrius) to fall in mad love with
Helena (leaving poor Hermia with no one), as Titania ends up falling in love
with an ass (one of the laborers, Bottom, given the head of a donkey by a
devilish Puck), and as our thespians lead up to their big world premiere in
front of the Duke and his bride.
But as easy as Shakespeare makes it for any reputable
company to glean hilarity from one of his best-written comedies, this ASF
production has found through its inspired casting a way to push the boundaries
even farther into sheer, slapstick silliness.
Through clever, comic switches of roles by often gender-bending players,
actors take on persona opposite in nature in a variety of dimensions. The mighty in power become in a second role the
most humble member of society while then transforming to maybe a fairy in
forested flight. And all we can do is
laugh and enjoy while – thanks to William J. Brown III’s excellent,
tongue-in-cheek direction – never being confused even for a second as to who is
who.
 |
| Maeron Yeshiwas & John R. Lewis |
John R. Lewis is the Duke Theseus, a man with aristocratic
airs speaking in bombastic bursts of consonants to his subjects who have come
to talk about their love problems. He is
most interested in giving his stroking, tongue-licking attention to his bride-to-be
(Hippolyta) while also adjusting his huge, leather cod piece that is
hilariously wont to shift and fall. Mr.
Lewis is also the street-smart, jiving, smooth-moving Puck who delights us with
his bigger-than-life-size personality and a body form much more gigantic than
the Pucks often playing the part. Among
the “mechanics,” he becomes a childishly eager, always clapping with
encouragement Starveling, playing a big-smiling, Southern-drawling Man in the
Moon who has trouble rising at the right time.
 |
| Annamarie MacLeod |
The Duke’s intended, Hippolyta, puffs on a metal pointer that
serves as her always-present cigarette as she puts on upper-class airs in her
Russian duchess accent, cooing and clawing her soon-husband every chance she
can get. But it is in her other two
roles that make Annamarie MacLeod a solid candidate for future, acting-award
nominations. As a pink-scarfed Helena
who is initially spurned by her adored Demetrius, she is plucky and pouty,
animated and anxious, ready to rant and quick to give a middle-finger
response. Her spread-eagle temptations
to a non-interested Demetrius and her over-the-top emotional responses become
ever more exaggerated and laugh-producing as mix-ups in the forest multiply. But incredibly, Ms. MacLeod is even more
hilarious in her third role as Bottom, a stage-hogging troupe member who tries
to play all parts but who ends up starring inadvertently as the braying donkey
that is loved by Hippolyta and catered to by her fairies. The role of her hillbilly-talking Bottom alone
is reason enough to shower much praise on Ms. MacLeod’s performance.
Maeron Yeshiwas has plenty of opportunity also to take
center stage in her role as Hermia, especially as she becomes like a chasing,
attack dog with barks of biting insults when she believes Helena, Demetrius,
and Lysander are all making fun of her love since Lysander is now supposedly heads
over heels in love with her and not his intended Helena, thanks to Puck’s
misfired prank. She also is the fairy
Cobweb and the acting troupe’s director, Quince.
Some of the funniest, best-directed moments of the evening
occur as Lindsey Marie Schmeltzer switches between a leather coat and a pair of
black glasses to play both of the lovers who end up loving Helena, Lysander and
Demetrius. The quick transformations of
personality and affections are masterfully coordinated, with other actors like
Puck stepping in at times to hold either the glasses or the coat so both
lover-boys can be in the same scene.
When she is not running around as one of the lost lovers, Ms. Schmeltzer
is the fairyland Flute, who renders a beautiful lullaby to lure Titania to
sleep.
Jennifer Le Blanc and Norman Gee switch sexes to play
respectively the Fairy King Oberon and his Queen, Titania. Oberon is a kind of Midwestern, twenty-something
good ol’ boy, wearing an air of self-defined coolness and moving with just the
right subtle swivels and shakes to ensure that everyone knows that he is
hip. His Titania speaks the Bard’s words
with an elegant, deep voice that adds to the impressive display of comic
acting, in wonderful contrast to Norman Gee’s angry and stubborn Egeus
(Hermia’s father) and his snorting, rough-speaking Snout who rules in his role
as the Wall that separates the lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe. Jennifer Le Blanc is also the bookworm Snug
who studies diligently for his role as a not-too-ferocious Lion and is a
bearded Philostrate with thick and funny Irish brogue.
How many times are actors warned and yet ignore about being
on stage with kids and animals? Once again,
one of the evening’s best moments is thanks to Beatrice, a dog playing duo
roles as a winged fairy and as the Moon’s (Starveling) pet. Beatrice suddenly employs her tongue to bring
the audience almost into tears with their laughter.
Lisa Claybaugh’s simple but highly effective mixture of
single-colored costumes along with the uses of Beatrice Page’s props are huge aids
in helping us as audience keep the constantly changing roles separate. Joanna Hobb’s lighting with split-second
changes brings the magic of the forest to full life, even with no other scenic
aids. Their efforts combined with an incredibly creative director and a highly skilled cast that
is clearly having a blast all add up to an evening at Arabian Shakespeare
Festival’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
that is not to be missed.
Rating: 5 E
A Midsummer Night’s
Dream continues through November 24, 2019 by the Arabian Shakespeare
Festival at the Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa Street, San Francisco. Tickets are available online at www.aragiashakes.org or by calling
408-499-0017.
Photo Credits: Gregg Le Blanc/Cumulus Light Photography
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