A Midsummer Night's Dream at the ART
Jan. 26th, 2004 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillibetLast night, Jason and I went with friends to see Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the ART.
First off, let me just say that I'm pretty tired of seeing dark, edgy productions of this play. While it has some fairly dark themes woven into it and the occasional gritty, psychsexual take on it is interesting, I wish that once in a while companies would take the risk and do a production where the fairies are enticing and the lighting is pushed past the "5" mark on the dimmer board.
To say that the set was bleak is like saying that the planet Jupiter is bigger than a duck. The stage was fairly steeply raked and covered with black gravel, with a black scrim at the back. There were four graves set into the stage, which served as beds for the characters at various points and were connected, so that Puck could travel between them. One of my companions suggested that they represented the fairies' access to the underworld, which helped make sense of them for me. The only other set pieces were a ragged armchair, a rickety upright piano in one corner, and a table and chairs brought on to serve as the Mechanicals' stage.
The bleak and ragged theme was continued in the costumes. Hermia's hair looked as if she had slept on it without washing for three days after hacking it off with a kitchen knife. Titannia's costume was a white corset and bloomers with a ragged negligee over it. When she became Hippolyta, she closed the skirt of the negligee and put a black velvet jacket over the top. Theseus wore a black suit and changed into Oberon by removing the jacket, rumpling his shirt and running his hands through his hair to make it stand on end.
Another costume motif was the dipped-hem look. The Lovers's tan suits (long skirts for the women and trousers for the men) were color-coded, so Hermia and Lysander's costumes were light purple from the shins down, while Helena and Demetrios had green. The fairies (in light grey leotards and ragged chiffon skirts) had their feet painted--three of them red, one blue or green.
The fairies were easily the best thing about this production--they flew. Strung on harnesses, they floated over the stage, rising and falling, wheeling and flying. Even with open wings providing full view of the burly guys hoisting them around the stage and the noise of the rigs quite audible, their flight was still enchanting. The lullaby they sang was haunting, harmonic and ethereal. The one odd thing was that there were four fairies, but only three of them flew. The other (playing Moth, ironically enough) mainly stood at the back of the stage. Unfortunately, she was the only black performer in the cast, making her ostracism seem oddly political.
The Lovers were fine. One of my companions had trouble with Lysander's lack of diction, while another was occasionally distracted by Helena's overabundance of it. We all agreed that Hermia was wonderful, the best performance in the cast, mainly due to her energy and spunk, especially in the "girlfight" scene.
The Mechanicals were a lot of fun. Francis Flute did a particularly nice job with Thisbe and Will Peebles was having a great time getting Wall's stones rubbed. Thomas Derrah turned in a respectable Bottom--he's a great performer and always fun to watch, although I was sorry that they made the choice for him to underplay Pyramis. I enjoyed their stage business and ad libs, especially when Flute says "Fuck!" on screwing up his "Ninus' tomb" line, and it was fun to watch Starveling dangling about on one of the fairies' harnesses as the Man in the Moon.
This production chose a dark and overblown conception of the lead fairies. Titannia did a fine job with her role, but looked like a brothel-keeper who's seen quite a number of better years. The consummation of her passion for Bottom was straight-forward (missionary position, even) and no-frills--sex stripped of any mystery or magic, even under enchantment. Oberon's performance was the most problemmatic in the show. At times it seemed that he was not clear on the meaning of his lines, which always makes the Shakespearean English much more difficult to follow. Puck was there with bells on, a jester stained with the dust of his travels, the best conceptualization in the show. During his closing speech he was lit to create a very haunting Cheshire cat effect, the best use of lighting in the show.
One of our favorite after-show games is "What Did They Cut?" In this case, although I haven't checked my copy of the script yet, the most noticeable cuts were all of Hippolyta's lines and a fair bit of Titannia and Oberon's scenes, which further weakened their roles.
Overall, it was an interesting production with a lot of good work, but not one of my favorites. Of course, it's not their fault that this is the third dark version I've seen in a row--at least this one didn't have flies on it. At a time of dark, cold weather and bleak political situations, I could really use a Dream that took me out of that world, instead of deeper into it. I think it's time for me to take a break from this play--at least until I read a review that uses the word "pretty."
First off, let me just say that I'm pretty tired of seeing dark, edgy productions of this play. While it has some fairly dark themes woven into it and the occasional gritty, psychsexual take on it is interesting, I wish that once in a while companies would take the risk and do a production where the fairies are enticing and the lighting is pushed past the "5" mark on the dimmer board.
To say that the set was bleak is like saying that the planet Jupiter is bigger than a duck. The stage was fairly steeply raked and covered with black gravel, with a black scrim at the back. There were four graves set into the stage, which served as beds for the characters at various points and were connected, so that Puck could travel between them. One of my companions suggested that they represented the fairies' access to the underworld, which helped make sense of them for me. The only other set pieces were a ragged armchair, a rickety upright piano in one corner, and a table and chairs brought on to serve as the Mechanicals' stage.
The bleak and ragged theme was continued in the costumes. Hermia's hair looked as if she had slept on it without washing for three days after hacking it off with a kitchen knife. Titannia's costume was a white corset and bloomers with a ragged negligee over it. When she became Hippolyta, she closed the skirt of the negligee and put a black velvet jacket over the top. Theseus wore a black suit and changed into Oberon by removing the jacket, rumpling his shirt and running his hands through his hair to make it stand on end.
Another costume motif was the dipped-hem look. The Lovers's tan suits (long skirts for the women and trousers for the men) were color-coded, so Hermia and Lysander's costumes were light purple from the shins down, while Helena and Demetrios had green. The fairies (in light grey leotards and ragged chiffon skirts) had their feet painted--three of them red, one blue or green.
The fairies were easily the best thing about this production--they flew. Strung on harnesses, they floated over the stage, rising and falling, wheeling and flying. Even with open wings providing full view of the burly guys hoisting them around the stage and the noise of the rigs quite audible, their flight was still enchanting. The lullaby they sang was haunting, harmonic and ethereal. The one odd thing was that there were four fairies, but only three of them flew. The other (playing Moth, ironically enough) mainly stood at the back of the stage. Unfortunately, she was the only black performer in the cast, making her ostracism seem oddly political.
The Lovers were fine. One of my companions had trouble with Lysander's lack of diction, while another was occasionally distracted by Helena's overabundance of it. We all agreed that Hermia was wonderful, the best performance in the cast, mainly due to her energy and spunk, especially in the "girlfight" scene.
The Mechanicals were a lot of fun. Francis Flute did a particularly nice job with Thisbe and Will Peebles was having a great time getting Wall's stones rubbed. Thomas Derrah turned in a respectable Bottom--he's a great performer and always fun to watch, although I was sorry that they made the choice for him to underplay Pyramis. I enjoyed their stage business and ad libs, especially when Flute says "Fuck!" on screwing up his "Ninus' tomb" line, and it was fun to watch Starveling dangling about on one of the fairies' harnesses as the Man in the Moon.
This production chose a dark and overblown conception of the lead fairies. Titannia did a fine job with her role, but looked like a brothel-keeper who's seen quite a number of better years. The consummation of her passion for Bottom was straight-forward (missionary position, even) and no-frills--sex stripped of any mystery or magic, even under enchantment. Oberon's performance was the most problemmatic in the show. At times it seemed that he was not clear on the meaning of his lines, which always makes the Shakespearean English much more difficult to follow. Puck was there with bells on, a jester stained with the dust of his travels, the best conceptualization in the show. During his closing speech he was lit to create a very haunting Cheshire cat effect, the best use of lighting in the show.
One of our favorite after-show games is "What Did They Cut?" In this case, although I haven't checked my copy of the script yet, the most noticeable cuts were all of Hippolyta's lines and a fair bit of Titannia and Oberon's scenes, which further weakened their roles.
Overall, it was an interesting production with a lot of good work, but not one of my favorites. Of course, it's not their fault that this is the third dark version I've seen in a row--at least this one didn't have flies on it. At a time of dark, cold weather and bleak political situations, I could really use a Dream that took me out of that world, instead of deeper into it. I think it's time for me to take a break from this play--at least until I read a review that uses the word "pretty."
