A Midsummer Night's Dream is probably Shakespeare's best-beloved comedy. The high-jinks of mortals and faeries, all bound to that most fickle Cupid, transcends time, place, culture, and language. When approaching the play, the crucial thing for us was this very exploration of love - and what true love is often mistaken for. The young lovers fall in and out of romantic infatuation, Theseus and Hippolyta share an uneasy truce masquerading as love-in-state,
Titania and Oberon are immortals on the rocks, further complicated by Titania's brief lust for the transformed Bottom. Bottom himself is in love only with himself, and at the end of the play at least one of the lovers is still under the compulsion of the spell!
To join in Shakespeare's critique of l'amour, we decided to add a few more layers. Quince was played by a woman, so that she could explore the love/hate relationship of woman to man and director to intractable actor. Dewdrop - the chief of the fairies in Titiana's court - flirted with Puck.
Since to an immortal, anyone mortal of any age is a youth, the "young Indian boy" was played by a virile young hunk, hence causing Oberon no
little consternation! Puck attempted to put the love spell on Hippolyta who ultimately rejected the emotional assistance in order to choose love of her own free will. Likewise, Demetrius choose to remain under the lovespell so that he might remain with Helena - despite his own true emotions.
Most importantly, though, we felt it necessary to show an example of actual love. The play-within-a-play, "Pyramus and Thisbe," is in many ways shakespeare's critique of the limitations of his own stage. He was allowed only male actors and hence the verisimilitude which he longed after was strained. There must always be something not quite realistic - and perhaps a little comical - about a man in drag taking himself as seriously as he could as a woman. (One wonders if he had to bribe some of his actors with "pants roles" - such as Rosalind or Viola - merely to get them into drag one more time - for, say, a Juliet or Ophelia. And therefore, this may have been his way of teasing his own actors about the stink they may have put up.)
Since we are no longer constrained to a single sex on the stage, we decided to add in the character of Belle, the assistant of Quince, the quiet stage-manager in the wings, the overlooked female who longs to be on stage but has no opportunity to prove herself. During the show, we built Belle's relationship to Flute - their childlike joy in each other's company - so that when Flute trying valiantly to persevere despite bad costume, bad fellow actor, and horrible audience, finally breaks down - she steps into the breach and provides everyone an example of the self-sacrificing nature of true love.
This decision has been, naturally, controversial. To see the whole show, it came along organically, almost inevitably. To see just the snippets below may be a little more confusing. And then there are those traditionalists who see red if things aren't done exactly like they were done before. (Whatever that means. We hardly have Shakespeare's original blocking notes!) However, I think Shakespeare would be glad of the opportunity to show the difference between stylized all-male casts and the beauty and simplicity of men and women together - on-stage and off.
Stage Managers: Jill Hall, Suzanna Pawlik, Stephanie Bennett Crew: Kevin Aspero, Filipe Chaves, Justin Durand, Marquee Snyder, Nick Spacciapoli
Directed/Written/Choreographed by: Emily C. A. Snyder Sound Head: Tom Prunera, Jim Babish Sound Crew: Kelly Daeke Light Head/Set Construction: Jeff Prunera Light Crew: Shane Penzone
Backstage Crew: Jerry Cournoyer, Filipe Chaves Set Painters: Erin Kelly, Julie Fleming, Jenny Janusis, Mike Janusis, Jeff Kelly, Suzanna Pawlik, Katrina Scheiner Costume Construction: Marianne Mahoney, Karen O'Leary, Allison McCarthy Speciality Tatoos: Julie Snyder Props: Donna Dupre
(c) 2008
Updated 21 February, 2008
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