This past Friday, the crowd buzzed eagerly in the Moore Theater while waiting for the first showing of SITI Company's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." As the audience filed into their seats, they were greeted by a simple but dreamlike backdrop of grey and white clouds and Puck (Jeffery Frac) playing a few chords on ... wait for it ... a banjo.
It was fitting that one of Shakespeare's more revolutionary plays was performed by a theater company reputed for "creating bold new productions." When it was written in the mid-1590s, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was regarded as Shakespeare's departure from the English Renaissance and evidence of his brilliant imagination. Unlike most of his earlier works, "Midsummer" was not based on any pre-existing stories but was entirely thought up by the playwright himself.
However, for this particular performance of Shakespeare, the stark backdrop and modern costumes evoked anything but Shakespeare's era. When the play began, the actors ran across the stage in the dim lighting, dressed in what appeared to be 1950s garb: brightly-colored Mary Janes, button-down floral print dresses and suspenders. The energy and dynamic colors set the tone for what was definitely a fun and light-hearted play.
Noted for being one of Shakespeare's funniest comedies, "Midsummer" was certainly full of laughs. The two lovers, Hermia (KJ Sanchez) and Lysander (Brent Werzner) and their dilemma were introduced: Hermia's father Egeus (Christopher Spencer Wells) commands her to marry Demetrius (Stephen Webber). "You have her father's love!" Lysander declares loudly to Demetrius, and suggests that he marry Egeus instead of Hermia, much to the audience's amusement. Hermia and Lysander decide to run away to the next town to get married, and afterwards Hermia tells her best friend Helena (Lucy Smith) who in turn tells Demetrius because she is in love with him.
As the story unfolds, more and more sexual innuendo and hilarity ensued. The fairy folk are portrayed as a savage, ridiculous and sensual people in satin nightdresses who perpetually stood on tiptoe. Titania (Ellen Lauren) screams like a banshee in anger at Oberon (Tom Nelis) as they quarrel over who would bring up an Indian Prince, the son of Titania's late servant. This quarrel results in Oberon commanding Puck to retrieve the flower Love-in-Idleness, which makes a person fall in love with the first thing he or she sees. He plots to make Titania fall in love with a monstrous beast in order to get his revenge. He also decides to help Helena by making Demetrius fall in love with her, after seeing her chasing after Demetrius through the woods and taking pity on her.
Of course, Oberon's servant Puck complicates everything by putting the Love-in-Idleness on Lysander instead of Demetrius. He causes trouble, too, for a performing theater troupe by turning their laughably flamboyant main actor, Bottom (Christopher Spencer Wells), into an ass, and then making Titania fall in love with him. The rest of the play aimed to resolve these setbacks and address the annoying irrationality of love.
The performance was immensely creative, minimalist and humorous. Bottom's over-exaggerated gestures, the fairies' crazy, animalistic noises and actions, and random eruptions contemporary music kept the audience in titters. So did the sexual connotations (e.g. Demetrius' face being level with Helena's "bosom" while he was declaring his love for her). The highlight of the entire play was, arguably, the theater troupe's performance of the story of Thisbe and Pyramus, wherein Pyramus (Bottom) dies a very overdramatic death, screaming "D-A-R-T-M-O-U-T-H, Dartmouth!" at one point, to much excited cheering from the audience.
The play's downside was that much of the gravity of the reflections on love, as well as the sinister actions of the fairies (tearing off butterflies' wings to give to Bottom), were lost in the hilarity. However, ultimately, the play was a histrionic, giddy romp with the actors expertly switching roles and costumes, seamlessly showing how the magical and the real mirror each other. The audience was left to wonder whether what they had experienced was, itself, just a dream, as the play ended with Puck's teasing, "you have but slumbered here, while these visions did appear ... "