Credit: David Cooper
At Studio 58 until October 20
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Posted on October 1, 2013
One of Shakespeare’s most often produced plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream presents a real challenge to a director to come up with a fresh new take. Director Scott Bellis, his finger firmly on the pulse of pop culture, goes with zombies and vampires in this Studio 58 student production and shifts the action from Athens, Greece, to the fictitious town of Athens, Romania, circa 1900. With necklaces of garlic, the Greek Athenians become colourfully dressed Romas. Oberon (muscular and sinister Dominic Duchesne) and Titania (Anthea Morritt), King and Queen of the Fairies, are transformed into King and Queen of the Undead. And if you think Hamlet has a lot of dead bodies left on stage as the curtain falls, wait ‘til you see this Midsummer Night’s Dream – or should I say Midsummer Night’s Nightmare?
From Bellis’s program notes: “Somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania lies the tiny village Athens. Surrounded by dark pine forests, the people live long and happy lives as long they obey one little rule: “Don’t go into the woods.””
Credit: David Cooper
But of course they do. Set designer Pam Johnson re-configures the space into an alley with the audience rising on two opposing sides. The performance area is festooned with dark, creeping vines; leafless trees suggest a blasted landscape: more ‘past tense’ than pastoral.
The fairies there are vampires: eyes, red-rimmed, faces deathly pale. Costume designer Naomi Sider goes with white: layers and layers of white over white tights. These creatures prowl the stage, barely able to contain their bloodlust. At one point, three of them circle and in unison intone, “When shall we three meet again”? before one of them reminds the others, “We’re not in Scotland anymore.”
This is a cheeky production and a bit of snoot cocking at Shakespeare. When both Lysander (Riun Garner) and Demetrius (Chirag Naik) are drugged by Puck to make them fall in love with Helena (Siona Gareau-Brennan), heartbroken Hermia (Lauren Jackson) polishes off both young men like a Ninja on a caffeine buzz. In fact, in his effort to find a new approach, Bellis has significantly upped the feistiness of the female characters in the play; the women all have plenty of attitude. Theseus’s wife Hippolyta (Lena Brown), for example, wears the pants – literally – in this family. At one point, Hippolyta even drags her husband by the ear or the scruff of the neck offstage.
Credit: David Cooper
Daughter of one of Leaky Heaven Circus founders and Cirque du Soleil performer Colin Heath and actor/writer/clown Manon Beaudoin, Lili Beaudoin is the most agile, most acrobatic Puck you’ve ever seen. On top of that, she’s sassy and spirited.
Much loved as is The Comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, the play-within-the play, it always feels like an add-on. And this production is no exception. The lovers – mixed up by Puck – have all been sorted out. Three weddings are in the offing. It looks like and feels like curtain. And then they all sit down to watch a play.
Fortunately, Erik Gow as the would-be thespian is excellent as Bottom, the weaver. He hams it up royally, especially when attempting to persuade Quince (Maxamillian Wallace) to let him play all the roles. Zac Scott is silly and sweet as Flute, the bellows-mender, who plays lovelorn Thisbe to Gow’s Pyramus.
Nevertheless, it’s always a relief when Theseus (Vincent Leblanc-Beaudoin) tells the players, “No epilogue, I pray you” and Shakespeare’s instructions read, “A dance.”
Anton Lipovetsky, music and sound designer, and Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, choreographer, come together to present a rousing, happy wedding dance with dirndls and brightly-coloured sashes flying – until it all goes sideways and you are creepily reminded, it ain’t Athens, Greece.
Credit: David Cooper