Review: A Midsummer Night's Dream by Baron's Men
by Michael Meigs
A Midsummer Night's Dream may well be Shakespeare's most familiar comedy. In his review of Austin theatre for the World Theatre Day celebration last April Robert Faires noted it as one of those plays that "circle round again and again like pop songs in heavy rotation." You have to admit it: he's right. The Tex-Arts youth program did the show ten days before his remarks, then Austin Shakespeare did it in Zilker Park with 1960's style pop music and just a couple of weeks ago the four traveling Actors from the London Stage did it at UT and out at Winedale. So we probably all know the text.
But this is not like watching re-runs of "I Dream of Jeannie." The familiar text is a springboard. The company of the Baron's Men bring that text to sparkling life in every aspect of their production.
Have you never seen the Curtain Theatre? You owe yourself that one -- a two-storied wooden "O" tucked away on the north bank of the Colorado River just west of the 360 bridge, a charming folie of gamer/entrepreneur/fee-paying-astronaut Richard Garriott. It's a reduced-Globe that seats about 125 and offers plenty of groundling space. The classic thrust stage has torch flares, traps and stairways. Newly constructed on the 'tiring house at the back of the stage is a wide balcony, from which a costumed consort plays renaissance music (cello, recorders, viola, violin, percussion and song).
As you arrive you'll find four voluptuous costumed houri performing Moroccan/Tunisian-style dance on red carpets to the accompaniment of drumbeats and the clash of finger cymbals. Their numbers alternate with those of the renaissance consort. The stage bell rings once, later twice, and finally thrice, then the crowd is treated to a clever admonition about cell phones, including the threat of mystic pinching fairies.
Superb costuming by "Master of Costume" Dawn Allee and "Master of Millinery" Pam Martin gives flash, humor and authenticity to the experience.
In case you have been too busy with those re-runs on TV, just remember that this is the one where three groups get all mixed up in a magic forest on midsummer night. The lovers who are either running away from parents or running after one another; the working men or "rude mechanicals" who are earnestly preparing an entertainment for the Duke's wedding; and the fairies. It's all about love, transformation and play.
Robin Goodfellow, or Puck, is the dutiful agent of mischief. Forget about all those flashing etherial slimsters that you've seen in the role. Casey Weed has this Puck planted firmly on the earth as a lusty comic centaur incarnating all those happy baser instincts. A winking clown complicit with the audience, this Puck can't resist slapping a bottom or leering at a dainty bit of fairy.
Kevin Gates as Oberon the fairy king is as sharp as his Puck is round; that black garb, those electric blue eyes and the tension of his gestures suggest that fairy land may not be for boys and girls.
Suzanne Balling as Titania is a queen devoted to her fairy women and visibly annoyed at Oberon. Director Jennifer Davis, a musician herself, brings Titania and her masked fairies into gorgeous courtly dances and songs in multiple harmonies. Watch for the scampering mouse! Master of Music Howard Burkett provides a helpful program note on the pieces used and the adaptation of them.
The mechanicals have surefire roles, guaranteed to amuse. Under Davis' lively direction they make the most of them. Bottom the weaver is the braggart eventually transformed into a donkey. Alejandro McDonald-Villareal plays him with plenty of silly bounce, even managing to keep his lines audible and articulate under cover of a full donkey head.
D. Heath Thompson, a welcome recurring comic phenomenon on Austin stages, makes Flute the bellows maker suitably slow-witted and somnolent, then before the court transforms into a wild Heidi with a beard while playing despairing lover Thisby. Eva McQuade as Snug and Lion is a deft comic and as huggable as a Care Bear.
The lovers and court folk provide the framework for all of this. The four lovers' roles are double cast. I had the great pleasure of seeing Jenny Lavery as Helena and of appreciating the crispness of her well-aimed diction. Karen Alvarado as her "low rival" Hermia is energetic and emphatic, and the confrontation between the two in III, 2 is a delicious cat fight.
All turns out well, of course. Along with the court and the reunited lovers we get to enjoy the mechanicals' inspired botching, atrocious acting and the hurried reassurances as they present the most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.
This is an evening to be enjoyed and remembered, one of clever, lively action, beautiful players and knockabout clowns, exquisite renaissance music, masques and costume. This company has become more sophisticated and more confident with every outing, and I look forward with great anticipation to their productions of Twelfth Night in the spring and Henry V a year from now.
Click to view the program of A Midsummer Night's Dream by the Baron's Men
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
by William Shakespeare
The Baron's Men
