Toronto Star, June 02, 2004
Confusing Dream in the forest
By: Richard Ouzounian
It's got everything from the Cirque du Soleil to cellphones, from Britney Spears to bungee jumps.
That's both the good and bad news about the production of A Midsummer Night's Dream that opened the 52nd season of the Stratford Festival last night.
Director Leon Rubin has given us a wildly extravagant and richly imaginative look at one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, but despite some very definite delights, it's hard to pinpoint what impression it finally leaves you with, or what it was actually trying to say.
We begin with a white-hot tango for Theseus and Hippolyta, choreographed with flair by Donna Feore. The music that throbs underneath is Latin (courtesy of composer Bruce Gaston) and military guards hover in the background.
Fair enough, you think, it's South America.
But then on come the lovers, and things start getting strange. Hermia is your standard issue teenybopper tramp, while Helena is an uptight private school girl, right down to the blazer and kilt. Lysander is a slick homeboy and Demetrius is a preppy geek.
Is this Rio or Rosedale?
The confusion keeps multiplying all night. The "rude mechanicals," despite some Latino props, are pure North American amateur actors, while the inhabitants of the fairy world all look like denizens of the Amazon rain forest.
If there ever was a play which needed a unifying concept to hold its various aspects together, it's A Midsummer Night's Dream, but the exact opposite happens here.
Things are reasonably fine as long as each group of characters is on their own.
But once they come together in the forest, the dysfunction at the heart of this production makes things grow strangely unaffecting.
Later on, when we return to the "real" world and the mechanicals finally get to present their play for the court, things are hysterically funny for about 15 minutes. But then, confusion returns.
It's obvious that most of the energy and money in this production has been put into realizing the fairy kingdom. It's where John Pennoyer's costumes get the most fantastical and Michael J. Whitfield's lighting starts pulling out all the multi-coloured stops.
Actors begin bouncing from the ceiling on bungee cords, Gaston's music pumps up the volume and Feore's dance moves grow increasingly manic.
But it goes for naught, because Shakespeare gets lost in all the window dressing. Fine actors like Jonathan Goad and Nicolas Van Burek make surprisingly little impression as Oberon and Puck. They speak clearly, and try to look barbaric, but there's no real resonance underneath.
Dana Green delivers Titania's great speech about the changes in nature with conviction and solidity, but nothing in her performance mirrors the jungle costume she's made to wear. Once again, dysfunction.
The lovers start out well, with Nazneen Contractor a spunky, sexy Hermia, Jeffrey Wetsch a too-cool Lysander and Haysam Kadri an endearing bullish Demetrius. Best of all is Michelle Giroux, whose bespectacled Helena begins as one of her finest creations, full of sly wit.
But once this foursome become part of the unconvincing Wild Kingdom antics in the forest, they lose originality and focus, turning into the same mismatched quartet you've seen in every other production of the play. Ultimately, the most consistent joy of the evening is undoubtedly the mechanicals. Led by a preening Thom Marriott as Bottom, they manage to be funny in a fresh and contemporary way, while respecting Shakespeare's text.
Marriott has the moves and mannerisms of the "sensitive" artist down pat and milks them for all their worth, but he never wears out his welcome. It's hilarious work.
Brendan Averett's beefy Flute is a wonder of misplaced femininity and Donald Carrier gives us a sublimely prissy Quince. Robert King's Snug is a triumph of the clueless and Shane Carty an endearing Starveling.
My personal favourite was Anthony Malarky's grinning Snout, who managed to channel Cheech and Chong simultaneously to delicious effect.
In the end, this is a show of fragments � some truly wonderful, some less so. When it's good, it's very good, but much of it is overproduced and underacted, which is not a dreamlike combination.