Short Night

Shakespeare on the Common did "Midsummer Night's Dream" last night. They also did it every day from last Saturday until now, and will do so every night thru next Sunday.

I attended with yendi and shadesong; yendi had to bug out early, but later we were joined by oneagain.

Here are some things that really work:

The play starts around 8pm, and as the Midsummer Night falls, the sun sets.

The play takes place (mostly) in a green glade, so the audience is on the extended set.

The Fae and the mortals interact, but only the Fae know it; this was accomplished thru the clever use of costumes. The Fae were in yellow, red, orange, and all the true and false colors in between; the mortals were in white.

From time to time, Oberon and Puck would deliver their pentameter in rap. No, really, by raw meter alone, it works brilliantly.

Here are some things that are most questionable:

Robin Goodfellow, the honest Puck, is canine? When by most readings he is obviously feline? (Or even chimp-like?)

Helena is a Connecticut WASP? With major impulse-control issues?

All of the Fae were rounded up from a Cirque du Soleil casting call? (Cirque du Foereil?)

The botched production of "Pyramus and Thisbe", by the barely ept players, was drawn out for comedic effect. Nobody ever told them that "brevity is the sole of wit", but Shakespeare himself wrote the notion that "this is brief but interminable" into the script, explaining that, "It has but ten words, but these are five to ten too many". But what do I know? I've never been a fan of the Three Stooges. The audience was mostly laughing.

Here are some things that didn't work:

With my rotten hearing, we were sitting too far back. This is not the fault of the sound techs, who did an excellent job with the remote mikes on the players; this is solely my tinnitus and the distance.

Similarly, the only way we could get close enough at all was to get a "partially obstructed view" behind a tree. This had me shifting left and right by four feet on the blanket to see the action on stage. I probably drove the people behind us nutty.

The concessions were at captive audience prices. Oh well, at least the profits were going to the local Boys' Club and Girls' Club.

Note that all of the things which didn't work could have been solved by arriving earlier and more prepared.

Overall, it worked for this Shakespeare-head. I was babbling in pentameter afterward, wholly enchanted. If my crude words got in anyone's face, I hope that they will consider this grace: that I was just as charmed by floral drops, and that there was no need to call the cops.