Director Edward Hall chooses to perform
Shakespeare with an all-male cast because, he says, that’s the
way Shakespeare did it. But the difference between Shakespeare
and Hall is that Shakespeare wanted his audiences to believe
the young boy actors who played the female roles were indeed
women, while in Hall’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream,"
now onstage at BAM’s Harvey Theater, the director does everything
possible to remind the audience that his actors are not women,
but men.
There are no wigs or falsies here. Helena (the outstanding Robert
Hands) has a bald spot. Puck (Simon Scardifield) holds his tutu
up with suspenders. And Titania (San Callis) looks more like
a wrestler than a fairy.
"A Midsummer Night’s Dream" is one of Shakespeare’s
earlier works. It is filled with youthful exuberance, romance
and optimism. There are no dark overtones. Even when Egeus (Chris
Myles) says he will kill his daughter Hermia (Jonathan McGuiness)
if she refuses to marry Demetrius (Vincent Leigh), it’s hard
to believe he will follow through on his outrageous threat. Besides,
the king himself, Theseus (Matthew Flynn) is a man in love –
with Hippolyta (Emilio Doorgasingh) – and will certainly not
allow such a misuse of paternal authority.
As for Oberon, King of the Fairies (Barnaby Kay), the trick he
plays on his wife, Titania, causing her to fall in love with
Bottom the Weaver (the indomitable Tony Bell) whom he has turned
into a donkey, is surely merited by her adulterous affection
for another. And it’s all in jest anyway, right?
If Shakespeare’s comedies are known for being broad and bawdy,
"A Midsummer Night’s Dream" is among the broadest and
bawdiest. Here the Bard presents us with not only two sets of
confused lovers, but also a group of confused would-be thespians
who, with gleeful abandon, destroy the Greek myth of Pyramus
and Thisbe.
All this makes the play perfectly suited for Hall and his Propeller
company, especially in the two funniest scenes, the fight scenes
in the woods – between Demetrius and Lysander (Dugald Bruce-Lockhart)
who vie for the astonished Helena, and between Hermia and Helena,
who have been transformed from friends into rivals – and in the
common folks’ inept performance of the play-within-a-play as
the cynical royalty looks on.
The tackling, tripping and tumbling that ensues at times resembles
a circus much more than theater, which quite effectively reinforces
the outlandish costumes and the eccentric casting.
With white chairs atop white ladders evoking the magical forest,
Hall relies to a great extent on Ben Ormerod’s light design for
scene changes, a whimsical chase through the woods and magical
deeds that result in desire gone awry. But what the play lacks
in explicit scenery it makes up for with costuming that is both
grotesque and gorgeous: Victorian dinner jackets, bowler hats
and vests, tutus and red-and-white striped tights, long johns
and corsets that place the play everywhere and nowhere. Or, one
might say, in the realm of the imagination.
One of the wonderful things about Shakespeare is the paucity
of stage directions. We know when characters enter and exit,
but not much more. This leaves creative directors plenty of room
for personal interpretations. Hall has made liberal use of this
latitude and allowed his actors subtle and not-so-subtle gestures
and expressions that are clearly supported by the text but often
seem more modern than Elizabethan. This only makes the production
more real and relevant to a contemporary audience.
Hall, son of the world-famous Shakespearian director Peter Hall,
and a former acting director with the Royal Shakespeare Company,
founded the all-male Propeller company in 1997 in conjunction
with the Watermill Theatre to create an ensemble for his "Henry
V." Hall made his American debut at the Chicago Shakespeare
Theatre with "Rose Rage," which he adapted with Roger
Warren from "Henry VI" parts I, II and III.
"A Midsummer Night’s Dream" marks Hall’s New York debut.
It is clearly a triumph.
The Propeller Company’s production of "A Midsummer Night’s
Dream" plays March 27 at 7:30 pm, with a matinee at 2 pm,
and March 28 at 3 pm. Tickets are $25, $40 and $60. The BAM Harvey
Theater is located at 651 Fulton St., between Ashland Place and
Rockwell Place in Fort Greene. Call (718) 636-4100 or visit www.bam.org
for further information.