Last weekend, the Shakesperiments presented their second annual all-student Shakespeare production.† This year the offering, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was directed by Katie Markovich ’12 and featured a large, dynamic and energetic cast.
One of Shakespeare’s most often-produced comedies, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” focuses on the nights leading up to the wedding of Theseus, Duke of Athens to the Amazonian maiden Hippolyta.† Four young lovers and a group of skilled laborers staging a play for the Duke’s amusement are confused and eventually set right by mischievous fairies.
All of the actors did an excellent job clearly conveying the plot and the jokes through the heightened Shakespearian language.† It was easy to get swept up in the story and the characters and forget I was watching a play that was hundreds of years old.
Markovich did a good job of developing a distinct physicality for each group of characters which made for a lot of really strong comedic moments in all three groups.† The lovers especially had some really great moments of physical comedy in their fight scenes, and all four actors pulled these off very well.
The two real standout performances of the night were Owen Reynolds ’11 as Bottom the Weaver, a ham actor who gets turned into a donkey, and Allison Wadleigh ’10 as Oberon, King of the fairies.† Reynolds wasn’t afraid to go completely over the top with Bottom and brought an undeniable energy to the part.† Wadleigh just played a completely different kind of Oberon than I’d ever seen before ó she was completely grounded and in control but with a subtle streak of crazy.† Her chemistry with Puck (Malcolm Campbell Taylor’s† ’13) was fantastic, and the scenes between them really stood out.
The mechanicals in general were a lot of fun ó each one had a distinct personality, and they felt very much like real people.† Actually, they kind of felt like a bunch of kids being told they had to do a school play, but it worked really well for the show.† The play-within-a-play at the end was probably the funniest scene in the production.
Titania and her attendants were realized in an interesting way, with very sexualized costumes and movements, aided by a bizarre obsession with lollipops.† I didn’t quite understand what that was about, but it wasn’t so weird that it was distracting, and it gave a few good opportunities for gags, so it worked out pretty well.
All told it was an enjoyable performance.† Shakesperiments has really come into its own this year, and I hope they continue to progress in years to come.