STAGE WEST
  • Home
  • About David
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Theatre Reviews
  • New Page

Theater reviews

Stage West

Bottom line on A Midsummer Night’s Dream

1/1/2013

0 Comments

 
​No donkey’s ears necessary. Miles Anderson’s Bottom elicits hee-haws, guffaws and of course more sophisticated laughter in the Old Globe’s summertime production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, part of the 2013 Shakespeare Festival on the outdoor Lowell Davies stage. Though at times straying into Alfie Doolittle territory in this staging directed by Ian Talbot, Anderson is all good-natured giddiness, whether under the spell of the fairies or starring in a ludicrous Pyramus and Thisbe with his fellow Athenian craftsmen. The physicality of this production is well-suited to his comical antics.
            In spite of Anderson’s rollicking presence throughout, this Midsummer is most beguiling in its keenly conceived fairyland sequences. These are charmingly enlivened by special “magical” effects, original music by Dan Moses Schreier and a cast of scamps and spell-weavers who flit about like wisps of gossamer. Jay Whittaker, so menacing in last year’s Shakespeare Festival as Richard III, is an athletic and scheming Oberon, king of the fairies. Bare chested, in tight trousers and with a shock of blonde-white hair, he looks like a Shakespearean Billy Idol, complete with self-satisfied scowl. Whittaker’s Oberon is abetted in his manipulation of lovers Lysander (Adam Gerber), Hermia (Winslow Corbett, the funniest), Demetrius (Nic Few) and Helena (Ryman Sneed) by the prankish Puck (Lucas Hall). A bubbly bathtub scene with the donkey-eared Bottom and the enamored (thanks to a spell) fairy queen Titania (Krystel Lucas) provides the best sight gag of the evening.
            When the action shifts from the forest of the fairies to the court of Athens, this Midsummer misses some of its enchantment, if not its unflagging energy (this ensemble is working hard). Even the closing performance of Pyramus, the play within the play, is more music hall than magical.
             This is an opulent but lengthy production, and keep in mind that though A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the ideal outdoor Shakespeare, it gets chilly in the theater by the time Bottom and company put on their hapless show for Theseus, Hippolyta and the four reunited, properly paired up, lovers. On opening night, blankets were as ubiquitous a sight as fairy dust
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    David L. Coddon is a Southern California theater critic.

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    August 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    January 2016
    January 2015
    December 2014
    January 2014
    January 2013
    January 2012
    January 2011

    Categories

    All
    Theatre Review

David Coddon

About 
David Coddon Fiction
Theatre Reviews

Support

Contact
FAQ
Terms of Use
© COPYRIGHT 2017. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • About David
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Theatre Reviews
  • New Page