A Midsummer Night’s Dream

In high school, I read A Midsummer Night’s Dream in British Lit. In fact, we acted part of it out, which was delightful fun. Then Mr. Jeffries let us watch the Diana Riggs film, in which Diana Riggs probably played a side role of some kind, but at the time I was deep in my Avengers phase (John Steed & Emma Peel, not the Marvel Avengers) so it was of course Diana Riggs who caught my attention.

And in 2023, I saw a delightful ballet version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And in between… surely I’ve seen other versions over the years? I feel like I’ve seen it lots of times! I’m very familiar with the story! But I’m coming up empty on other productions.

Maybe it feels so familiar because A Midsummer Night’s Dream often shows up in children’s books, most notably Susan Cooper’s King of Shadows, where Nat plays Puck.

Anyway. The university theater department put on a production, and although college theater can be a bit of a crapshoot, I can’t turn down reasonably priced Shakespeare.

And it was fantastic! I went with my parents (the tickets were my dad’s birthday present) and we all laughed so hard. The conceit was that the play was taking place at a music festival, and the rude mechanicals were the backstage workers, so the play started with them wandering around the theater pretending to make last minute adjustments: “Does it look like that light is going to fall again?” “No, it couldn’t possibly fall a third time.”

The rude mechanicals may have been my favorite part of the show, particularly Bottom who is such a recognizable type as an extroverted clueless dude who seems vaguely stoned but is probably just Like That as a person. The rude mechanicals are putting on a play and Bottom, who has been cast as Pyramus, excitedly offers to play every single part. Meanwhile, Flute shudders to hear he’s been cast opposite Bottom as Thisbe. (Flute was played by a girl who is playing a man who is playing a girl, and as Thisbe she had the highest, twitteriest possible falsetto. I couldn’t exactly understand what she was saying but it was so funny it didn’t matter.)

But how can I say that the rude mechanicals were my favorite when the fairies were also so delightful? Oberon was played by a girl dressed like Xena, Warrior Princess, with gigantic platform stompy boots. Puck was madly in love with her, and Oberon flirted back because that’s just what Oberon does. At one point they’re literally eating popcorn as they watch the four lovers quarrel.

(And I can’t sleep on the four lovers, either! I particularly loved Helena, in hopeless love with Demetrius and taking a big swig from the wine bottle about it, but Demetrius and Lysander were also lots of fun, strutting and preening once Puck’s love-in-idleness has made them both madly in love with Helena. I had a little trouble understanding Hermia but she had the spirit.)

But, returning to the fairies, although Oberon flirts with Puck, at the end of the day she has eyes only for Titania (and Puck gazes after Oberon wistfully as Oberon goes back to her wife). And Titania’s four fairies were so much fun. Special shout-out to Cobweb, the goth fairy, who is so done with everything but ESPECIALLY so done with feeding grapes to the donkey-headed Bottom.

The program noted that, rather than having a traditional director, this play had been a collaboration between all the performers. You could especially see this in the interplay between the fairies and the rude mechanicals, both of whom have a web of relationships with each other. For instance, when Bottom returns to the rude mechanicals with his own head again, he’s hugging and fist-bumping everyone, and then he’s going in for a hug with Flute - and at the last moment they’re both like, nope, we don’t actually like each other, glad you’ve got your head back bro but not gonna hug you.

They played on a basically bare stage: a moon hanging in the background, a platform surrounded with sticks (this is where Oberon and Puck sat eating popcorn), and a bed that rolled out from under the platform for Titania’s bower. The costumes in contrast were pretty elaborate. I’ve already mentioned Xena, Warrior Princess Oberon and Cobweb the goth fairy, but there was also Bottom’s cardboard donkey head (somehow more impressive for being obviously cardboard) and the rude mechanicals’ costumes for the play within a play, including the guy who played Wall wearing two sheets, and the girl who played the moon by standing on a little stepladder and holding up a disco ball and gazing out at us with simulated petrifaction. (The play within a play was so funny I laughed till I cried.)

Just a great time all around. I wish we hadn’t gone to the last performance, because I would have loved to go see it again.