“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

Posted by Gail M. Burns - November 1998

If you love Shakespeare then this is your lucky month! The Manic Stage began
the onslaught, opening “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” last Thursday.
Williamstheatre, Mt. Greylock, and McCann weigh in this week with productions
of “Twelfth Night”, “Hamlet”, and another “Midsummer” respectively later this
week. McCann and Mt. Greylock are participating in Shakespeare & Company’s
10th annual Fall Festival of Shakespeare in which high school productions of
ten of Shakespeare’s plays take the stage at BCC from November 19-22.

My first concern when I heard that the Manic Stage was going to mount
Shakespeare was how they were going to fit all those actors and all that
action into their tiny performance space. If you have never been to the
Manic, their space, a former store front on North Adams’ Main Street, is long
and narrow. It is akin to wathcing theatre performed in a a train car. So I
was relieved upon entering the theatre to see that Director Christopher J.
Beaulieu had decided to rearrange the performance area and the audience
seating to use more of the long side of the room and less of the narrow end.
The arrangement was not ideal, but it did allow fthe energetic action to take
place primarliy along the long side of the space, rather than in one narrow
end.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a very energetic play. Four hopelessly
confused lovers wandering the woods outside of Athens. A gaggle of fairies
making their lives even more miserable. And a group of blue-collar workers
struggling to prepare a “tragical comedy” for performance at the Duke’s
impending nuptials. Essentially three parallel plots wrapped in the fourth
story of the Duke’s wedding careen through the woods one midsummer night.

Beaulieu has chosen to double cast the show. The same actors who play the
Duke Theseus and his bride Hippolyta (Bruce T. MacDonald and Barby Cardillo)
play Oberon and Titania, the King and Queen of the Fairies. The four lovers -
Hermia (Anne Undeland), Demetrius (Josh Granger), Helena (Betsy Ware), and
Lysander (Lee Perry Collyer) – also play the fairies. Even Alexia Trova as
Puck also appears in a minor servants role as Philostrate – although she must
be heavily draped to cover her fairy costume and hair.

The plot is framed within the dream of a child (Elizabeth Windover) – a device
that I liked more as the play moved forward. Windover does a good job of
being present but not intrusive as the plot moves forward. Beaulieu has
created one lovely moment in which she and Puck play together.

I loved Trova as Puck, although I wished either she or Beaulieu hadn’t found
it necessary to attempt a new spin on the line “I go, I go, swifter than the
arrow from a Tartar’s bow.” Trova is spectacularly costumed and lit so that
she literally glows with an unearthly violet aura. She becomes Puck in body,
voice, and spirit.

The young actors playing the lovers seem to enjoy themselves thoroughly and
bring a great deal of youthful energy to the stage. I especially enjoyed
Undeland as Hermia. The only downside to casting such lithe and agile young
people (some of whom are not yet out of high school) as the lovers was that
they made the older actors look a great deal older than they actually are.
MacDonald, who gave a masterful performance in the Manic’s production of
“Simpatico” last month, was hard pressed to keep up with Trova’s Puck, who
bounded and tubled through the role.

The “machanicals” were most entertaining. I adored Jennifer Johanos in both
of her roles but was especially impressed with what she did as Robin Starvling
the Tailor. This is a role of few lines, but Johanos made Starvling into a
full blown character through her body language. The only Equity actor in the
cast, she showed her stuff by being constantly “on” and in character. Paige
Carter designed a terrific costume for her – filled with pins and measuring
tapes with which Starvling busied himself on several occasions. Craig Lanoue
burst into his own at the end when he got to portray the star cossed lover
Thisbe in the play the laborers present at the Duke’s wedding. Bret Bishoff
as Nick Bottom, an ass of a man who is morphed into a real ass by Puck as the
plot moves on, started off strong but was unable to sustain the character
successfully to the end.

Despite a few bursts of glory, such as Trovia’s Puck and Johanos’ Robin
Starvling, Carter’s costumes were disappointing. Small details became
unnecessarily annoying. I spent far to much time wanting to pull up Granger’s
trousers so the elastic of his underwear wouldn’t show, put a slip on Ware,
and rip the “Dockers” tag off of the slacks MacDonald wore as Theseus. Maybe
it is just the theatre in my blood, but these tiny things can really destroy
an illusion and break the audience’s concentration.

While overall not a perfect production, this is certainly a highly enjoyable
evening of theatre with lots of laughs – a fine way to introduce school-aged
children to Shakespeare. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” runs through November 22
at the Manic Stage, 55 Main Street, North Adams, adjoining Zoie’s Restraurant.
Dinner theatre packages are available. North Adams residents “pay what you
can” on Thursdays. Call 663-2323 for tickets and information.

copyright Gail M. Burns, 1998

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