A Midsummer Night's Dream | Matthew Gruman

Artist rendition of Shakespeare's play

About a year ago, I vowed never to pay for student theatre again. Between the shows I see from comps/invite and professional theatres, I couldn’t see the point of paying money to (probably) end up disappointed. But, I got a text message from a friend last week:

What are you doing after laurie s thing tomorrow? Want to go see midsummer night dream at fred wood?

My instant reaction was “no”. This is the first “big” production form the current semester’s season at UBC Theatre though, which seems to lend itself to more avant-garde productions so I thought about it:

It’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, my favourite of Shakespeare’s plays, and I’ve never seen it on stage.
The director is program chair, Stephen Heatley.
Their elaborate webpage is really cool.
The costume design looked very interesting.
Original score!

So off we went to the theatre. We got in a bit late and had to step over who we later found out was Stephen Heatley to get to our seats.

Characterization

The production starts with the characters introducing themselves to an intense, electronic score. Each actor has a Rubbermade bin from which they take their costumes and introduce their character(s). There is a LOT of gender switching and doubling. Theseus is played by a woman while Hippolyta is played by a man. Those same two actors portray Titania and Oberon, but they have switched genders and only slightly altered their costumes. Tr?s confusing. Confusion became a common theme, partly due to the doubling and lack of distinction between their costumes. Also, whereas the men raised their voices to play the female characters, the women did not alter their pitch at all.

I Had a Hunch

In the program, paraphrasing, Heatley says that he “had a hunch about the play”. That it could be “more dark than most interpretations”. Great. It fits well with the music. But that didn’t really happen. The play never seemed to figure out if it was dark, or incredibly comedic. The transitions between the two genres were awkward and really lacked continuity. This added to the confusion and really made the production seem hap-hazard.

Puck / Robin Goodfellow

I love Puck. Everyone loves Puck, right? I didn’t love this Puck. The actress portraying him was so physically grounded – more like an Earth Mother than a fairy. Every step she took seemed to resonate across the theatre and every soliloquy boomed with importance. And of course there was the dark/comedy confusion again.

The Players

Good lord the Players were funny. All of them had immaculate comic timing and really took over their roles. The actress playing Bottom? Holy cow you are funny! They were the perfect counter-point to the misguided darkness of the rest of the play. The only bad thing about their performance was that it ended and brought back the confusion.

The Music

The music was cool. Hats off to you, Patrick Pennefather. It was very geared for a dark play and consisted mainly of electronic noise, swelling synth pads, and some nice hollow/industrial sounding beats. But does great dark music fit well with a play that gets silly sometimes? Unfortunately not. There was one moment at the end, post the Players’ play, when the entire cast dances to the sole “happy” song of the production. It was like it turned into an acid-washed BBC production for about a minute, and then back to the dark dark dark. Anyway, I hope to hear Pennefather’s tunes in more (appropriate) productions.

Little Shop of Horrors

A few years ago, I played in the band for a production of Little Shop of Horrors. The company, then called Clipped Right Wing Productions, is partially owned by Shaun Aquiline who put on a very solid performance of Demetrius. The production of Little Shop was also “dark”, and also didn’t translate very well onto the stage. It was funny to see Shaun in another comedy show that’s been changed up.