I've seen three Midsummer Night’s Dreams in the past 10 years or so, but none of them had the simple fresh charm of the one currently being offered by TheatreUSF. Presented as a project of the British International Theatre (BRIT) Program, this Midsummer is as clear as a song by the Beach Boys, as funny as a sketch on Saturday Night Live, and as efficient as a greatest hits medley on YouTube — turning five acts into a single 80-minute never-lingering romp. True, the casting is uneven — only to be expected in a production employing students — but there are so many high points, one doesn’t mind the occasional mismatch of actor and role. Most of all, this is a production with a delightful concept and an unstoppable energy. If you had any doubts, this pageant will prove to you that there’s nothing stodgy about the Bard.
Midsummer Night’s Dream
***1/2
TheatreUSF, Theatre 2, University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Ave., Tampa. Through Feb. 28. Thurs.-Sat., 7:30 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. $15. 813-974-2323. theatreanddance.arts.usf.edu
Now, about that concept: The play is presented on a large rectangular bed of sand representing a Florida beach. The lovers, Hermia and Lysander and Helena and Demetrius, are college students from the University of Athens, the males dressed as basketball players and the females as cheerleaders. Theseus, Duke of Athens, is a Bay area sheriff, and the Rude Mechanicals are prisoners, members of a chain gang who’ve been tasked with presenting the play of Pyramus and Thisbe before the Duke and Duchess. The fairy king Oberon is as supernatural as ever, as are Queen Titania and Puck, but their fairy minions are celebrators at an endless rave party on the beach. There’s a disco ball and loud synthesized music. Oberon wears a bathing suit.
Some of the performances are wonderful. Let’s begin with the odd couple, Titania and Bottom the Weaver. You may remember that a few magic spells transform Bottom into an ass and Titania into a woman wild about the mammal. Well, Kevin Michael Wesson and Rachel Baez make the most of this famous pairing, with one unusual detail: Baez’s Titania is a dominatrix who delights in spanking Bottom’s bottom with a riding crop, and even leading him around on a tether. Usually the Titania/Bottom liaison is played as a comment on love’s blindness; but Baez’s Titania is anything but blind, and has apparently been waiting for the right subhuman all her life. As for Wesson’s Bottom, he seems distinctly pleased with the relationship (full disclosure: Wesson is a student of mine in a USF screenwriting course), and even before these lovers discover each other, Wesson has stolen the show with his bright-faced eagerness to play Pyramus. (His prolonged mock-death near play’s end is pure fun.) Is Shakespeare commenting on an S&M relationship several centuries before Sacher-Masoch? So Beecham and Malin would have us think.
Then there are the muddled couples Hermia/Lysander and Helena/Demetrius. The standouts here are Agata Sokolska as a headstrong, opinionated Hermia who’s part college temptress and part bratty little sister; and Landon Leyland as a Demetrius with a short temper and a tendency to punch any other man who challenges his priorities. But Patrick Felisma as Lysander is also strong as an ultra-sincere lover besotted with Hermia; and Ashley Emrick as Helena is amusingly anguished over men who either don’t return her affections or who return them too illogically. Sandiana Mervil plays Hermia’s mother Egea (father Egeus in the original) as a middle-class professional driven to distraction by her disobedient offspring; and Jordan DeShong plays Peter Quince with a comic bossiness that never turns to tyranny.
The other star is costumer Alice Fay, whose creations are so essential in transferring this Midsummer to a cheerful cartoon Florida. I’ve already mentioned the basketball and cheerleading outfits of the lovers, but there are also the prison togs of the Rude Mechanicals: black and white stripes under bright yellow safety vests; Theseus’ brown sheriff’s uniform; and the swimwear of the dancing fairies. The elemental set is designed by Beau B. Edwardson, and the rockin’ music by Matt Cowley. I’ve seen so many Shakespeare works set in the present that looked and sounded like the result of a low budget and weak imagination; this production, without going to extremes (that bed of sand is used for everything) proves how much is possible with intelligent but simple ideas. Basic as it is, it’s all the production needs.
Consider it Midsummer’s Greatest Hits, set on the Gulf Coast, and getting you in and out of your seats in under an hour-and-a-half. Consider it a tribute by two British directors to our tropical home. And consider it – most of all – an unexpected joy.
Wondering what the stars mean? Check out Mark E. Leib's explanation of how he assigns them.
This article appears in Feb 18-24, 2016.