‘Midsummer Night’s’ pleasant romp
at Actors’ Summit
By David Ritchey
HUDSON — William Shakespeare (1565-1616) could make an audience laugh. More than 400 years after he wrote “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the play can still hold an audience’s interest and make them laugh.
Actors’ Summit Theater has brought this comedy to the stage in a solid, yet humorous, production. Much about this production is tied to the Elizabethan age and Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. This is a refreshing change from the current fad of modern or semi-modern settings for Shakespeare.
In the Actors’ Summit Theater, the audience sits on three sides of the playing area. This is authentic. But for this show, the set is a classic circle, reminiscent of the Globe’s playing area. This circle is tilted toward the audience, and the center of the circle is filled with flowers and other plants one might find growing in a forest.
Shakespeare set “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Greece. However, he never visited Greece and didn’t have picture books to give him a view of the country. So, despite what is printed in the script and various program notes — think England. Shakespeare wrote about the world he knew — that narrow corridor between Stratford-on-Avon and London.
Shakespeare surely saw the fields of yellow flowers and the streams cutting across the fields. Occasionally on this road, one will see a castle nestled in a clump of trees. This is the setting for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
The plot includes royalty, fairies
and rustics (low characters). This is a wonderful mixture
that guarantees confusion and laughter. The plot is
easier to follow on the
stage than when it is read. Lysander loves Hermia and
Hermia loves Lysander. Helena Loves Demetrius; Demetrius
used to love Helena but now loves Hermia. This soap-opera
style love triangle — or is it a square? —
becomes more confused when Hermia’s father demands
she marry Demetrius. At this point the fairies get into
the action and place a love potion in the eyes of some
of the characters — when they awake, they will
love the first person they see. Of course, the fairies
get confused as they go about their matchmaking and
make falling in love even
more humorous than it usually is.
Puck, a fairy, places a spell
on Bottom and places a donkey’s head on the rustic.
Titania, queen of the fairies, has been given the love
potion and awakes to fall in love with Bottom and his
donkey’s head.
But, as Shakespeare wrote, all’s
well that ends well. And the right people get together
and live happily until the curtain call.
However, in preparation for the
wedding party, the rustics write a play, which is a
parody of the plays of Shakespeare’s day. The
title of their production is “The Most Lamentable
Comedy, and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby.”
The audience follows the writing, rehearsal and, finally,
the performance of this play-within-a-play. And, what
a merry company of actors brings this show to life.
The mechanics are Quince (Bob Parenti), Snug (Devon
Stanley), Bottom (Peter Voinovich), Flute (Aaron Coleman),
Snout (Irving Korman) and Starveling (Scott Thomas).
The story of “Pyramus and Thisbe” is a classic
love story of Shakespeare’s time. The couple fall
in love but are kept apart by a wall. When they
finally get together, Pyramus is dead, and when Thisbe
discovers her love has died, she kills herself. (One
might say this is the comic version of “Romeo
and Juliet.”)
But no detail can be omitted
from this production. Korman as Snout plays the wall.
On a rope around his neck, he wears a stone wall that
extends almost to his feet. He extends his arms so that
the lovers can speak through a chink in the wall, his
outstretched fingers.
Bottom explains to the audience
that he will not really die and then plays the longest
death scene on record. Voinovich is a large man and,
yet, he falls, rolls down the walls of the set and flops
his body about the playing area until finally he seems
to die. Then he rises to explain that his soul has flown
to heaven as he flutters his hands in a bird-like gesture.
He stopped the show. Even the
cast applauded his death scene. This scene is so well-directed
and so well-played that audience members were talking
about the scene as they left the theater.
Coleman plays Thisby with a small,
high-pitched voice, a long, white gown that doesn’t
quite fit, a well-padded
bra and a platinum wig that seems to have a mind of
its own. Coleman is the perfect foil for Voinovich.
When the two play their love scenes, it’s low,
low comedy at its best.
Shakespeare should be this much
fun. This show is a perfect introduction for the young
to the world of Shakespeare. The production, under Neil
Thackaberry’s direction, is accessible to young
audience members. In fact, because of a grant from the
Ohio Arts Council, Actors’ Summit will be able
to perform matinees for more than 1,000 students at
special matinees.
For ticket information, call
(330) 342-0800.
David Ritchey has a Ph.D. in
communications and is a professor of communications
at The University of Akron. He is a member of the American
Theatre Critics Association.
Peter Voinovich and Sally Groth star in Actors’ Summit Theater’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Photo courtesy of Actors’ Summit Theater
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