Midsummer Night's Dream

[psocoptera]

A Midsummer Night's Dream put on by the Actors' Shakespeare Project at the Mosesian Center in Watertown. My MIL generously wanted to take the family out to a play - I think this was Q's first live Shakespeare? For me, it's always interesting to see what a different production will do with a very familiar text like this one. I did not love every choice this company made (it was very screamy and I had a moderately bad headache, and they had cast the young lovers with some of the older actors and the over-the-topness I can kind of deal with coming from young people gets creepier when they're all middle-aged, and they played the last bit of the play-within-the-play weirdly straightly-dramatic rather than going for comedy). But they were obviously having a lot of fun, and the 90s-club styling of the fairies was fun, and they made the interesting choice of casting Puck with an amazing breakdancer and giving some of his speeches to voiceovers (and the last bit to Quince, here a veteran theater director lady). And the kids thought it was funny and had fun, so, definitely a success as a theater outing.

Comments

Pyramus and Thisbe

[vardibidian]

It's common, in recent decades, for the Pyramus and Thisbe scene to become 'straight'—in particular, for the Actor playing Thisbe, or more accurately, the actor playing Flute-playing-Thisbe, usually male presenting, to play Thisbe's grief as real. The idea, I think, is that after all the poshos sneering at the mechanicals, they are startled to discover that Flute, despite everything, is really a good actor. Which pulls the rug out from under their superiority.

I don't like that choice, but I do admit that if you do the whole scene just as making fun of Bottom and Flute and Snout and the rest actors, that it can become uncomfortable.

Thanks,
-V.

Re: Pyramus and Thisbe

[psocoptera]

That's interesting about that being a trend, and I can see how it could be a nice alternative to mocking, but if that's what they were trying to do it didn't come across at all in how they did it, alas.