Paul James as Oberon and Christopher Michael Rivera as Puck
Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” with its combination of Athenian royalty and “rude mechanicals,” young love and parental oppression, woodland fairies and magic potions, lends itself to unusual interpretation.
The Old Globe’s Resident Artist Patricia McGregor directs a most original version on the outdoor Festival Stage through Sept. 4.
McGregor sees the play through a Marvel movies/Afrofuturist lens, so get ready for costumes and attitudes (of black culture and aesthetics) you’ve never seen in this play before.
It starts when you walk in, to find an unscripted DJ (Miki Vale) spinning platters and contributing original music and occasional (modern) commentary to the goings-on.
As the play opens, Theseus (a duke of Athens, played by Brett Cassidy) and Hippolyta (Camilla Leonard) are four days from their wedding when Egeus (Victor Morris) drags his daughter Hermia (Jamie Ann Romero) to Theseus in order to force her to marry his choice, Demetrius (Jeffrey Rashad), rather than her choice, Lysander (Bernadette Sefic). (Note that this Lysander is female.) Dad Egeus intends to make her decide between marrying Demetrius or choosing between death and life as a nun.
Hermia decides to run away to the forest, and tells her best friend Helena (who actually does love Demetrius) about the plot. They both split for the woods.
Meanwhile, Oberon (Paul James and Titania (Karen Aldridge), the king and queen of the fairies, have also come to the forest for the wedding. They are estranged because Titania refuses to give her changeling to Oberon.
Oberon starts the comedic problems when he instructs his sprite Puck (Christopher Michael Rivera) to concoct a magic potion to pour into Titania’s eyes while she sleeps. This potion will make her fall in love with the first living thing she sees when she awakens.
That potion will mess up lots of things and lead to many funny complications.
Meanwhile, the “mechanicals,” a group of six guys led (sort of) by Bottom the Weaver (Jake Milgard), have heard about the royal wedding-to-be and decide to provide a little entertainment for the group, with a “play” about lovers Pyramus and Thisbe, who are separated by a wall.
One plays the wall, one plays a lion and well, you can guess how it looks. It’s great for a laugh. And then the play is over, and so is the show.
The Afro-futurist elements are mainly in the costumes for principals Hippolyta, Oberon and Titania, and they are quite spectacular.
This play also accomplishes a goal of the Old Globe: it has cast eleven student actors from the Old Globe/University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Program.
This is McGregor’s last job here. After this show, she leaves the Globe to become artistic director of the New York Theatre Workshop.
I might have wished for a more "forest-y" look, since most of the play takes place in the woods. But if you’re in the mood for some goofiness with fine acting and fab costumes, you might give this “Midsummer Night’s Dream” a whirl.
The details
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” plays through September 4, 2022 in the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre at the Old Globe Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park.
Performances: Tuesday through Sunday at 8 p.m.
Tickets: www.TheOldGlobe.org or (619) 234-5623.
COVID protocol: Masks strongly recommended but not required.
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