A Midsummer Night's Dream (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Midsummer Night's Dream Peter Holland A Midsummer Night's DreamPresented by Department of Theatre, UNC Charlotte outdoors at the Robinson Hall for the Performing Arts, Charlotte, North Carolina. April 18-May 1, 2011. Directed by Andrew Hartley. Scenic design by Anita Tripathi Easterling. Costume design by Paula Garofalo. Sound design by Robert Schoneman. Choreography by Delia Neil. With James Shafer (Theseus. Oberon), Doug Savitt (Philostrate, Puck), Teresa Hopson (Titania, Hippolyta), Sammy Harley (Demetrius), Amy Scheide (Helena), Ken Burrows (Egeus), Harmony Andre (Lysander), Nathalie Mendez (Hermia), Audrey Hudson (Quince), Connor Culpepper (Bottom), Emily Fitch (Flute), Tyler Waddell (Starveling), Sebastian Hartley (The Indian Boy), et al.. I have been aware, over the last few years, of increasingly different dynamics operating in my responses as I watch a Shakespeare production. The first, definitely healthier process (let's call it Dynamic A) is to sit back and let the production do its work, to follow its overall energies, to allow its materials to accumulate into a whole, whether my response is ultimately—at the performance's end or months later—pleasure or pain, exhilaration or exhaustion. The second, more pragmatic process (Dynamic B), though perhaps this is unfair to the concept of pragmatism, is to fragment the production, seizing on moments that seem to demand to be turned into useful memories, ones that might function as materials in writing about the play or teaching it. The worst version of Dynamic B is to be watching/listening as a kind of continual preparation for the post-performance conversations with friends or cast (some people can be both): I really liked/hated it when he/you did this or she moved there or the lighting changed like that. But not all of Dynamic B need be that bad. Often there is the straightforward delight in a moment beautifully managed. When, for instance, in the hunting scene (4.1), Ken Burrows's Egeus started to leave to follow Theseus and Hippolyta, Hermia (Nathalie Mendez) made a long cross towards him, her head humbly abashed but everything about her speaking eloquently of her desire for reconciliation with her father, only for him to turn away and exit fast, waving his hand dismissively. This Egeus was not seen in act five, incapable of being reconciled to his daughter's marriage. This failed reconciliation echoed the achieved resolution between Oberon and Titania, for James Shafer's Oberon was only too aware that Titania would need to be told exactly how it was that she "sleeping here was found / With these mortals on the ground." Not good at hiding his [End Page 675]shame, he ended up kneeling, head down, waiting and waiting until, gently and lovingly, she raised his head with her hand under his chin and accepted him again. There would be a difficult time of explanation to follow but the embrace was loving and, by including the Indian Boy, suggesting a new nuclear family. And, beyond these loves, there were new back-stories and extra-textual affections to enjoy among the workers, like Starveling's unrequited passion for Bottom, with Tyler Waddell's verygay Starveling ecstatic at Bottom's return from his transformation and, later, rushing from the stage in tears when humiliated by the courtiers' comments on his performance as Moon, needing Bottom's encouragement to return. Most satisfying of all was the transformation of Emily Fitch's Flute from a grimy, physically awkward female miner (not with "a beard coming" but someone who had "brought a beard" in anticipation of playing a "wandering knight") into someone very pretty indeed, "most lily-white of hue." When she lamented movingly over Pyramus's corpse, Bottom fell for her, sat up and gave her the rapturous kiss on the lips that she had been hoping for, and then, embarrassed at this breach of the performance's fiction, dropped back to play dead again. One sign, then, of my enjoyment of this production was the rich harvest of Dynamic B events, the sheer number of discoveries new to me or played particularly well, even down to new gags in Pyramus and Thisbe—I want to long remember Starveling's wail when Bottom, chewing up...