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In the midst of the often grey and dreary days we now find ourselves in, the Two River Theater Company in Red Bank has delivered theater-goers a much-welcome artistic escape in the form of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," an enchanting production of William Shakespeare's classic comedy running through Nov. 15.
For the uninitiated, the play essentially concerns four young lovers caught up in an increasingly knotty love quadrangle, a troupe of hopelessly and hilariously bad local part-time actors and a long evening these mortals spend in the woods while caught in the middle of a seemingly eternal spat between the King and Queen of the Fairies.
"Midsummer" is a play that has been brought to the big and small screens several times, with actors such as Christian Bale, Calista Flockhart, Helen Mirren and James Cagney all taking a crack at the material. It served as the inspiration for one of the most acclaimed installments of author Neil Gailman's "The Sandman" series. And yes, it was even a key plot point in "Dead Poet's Society."
This is a work that has been around a long time, a tale that is almost universally familiar, and so that makes what director and Two River Theater artistic director Aaron Posner has achieved with the play even more impressive: he has delivered an original, refreshing and wholly crowd-pleasing take on one of Shakespeare's most beloved works.
Posner succeed, actually, in a similar manner to the way he brought Shakespeare's "Macbeth" to the stage last year, by going the genre route. With co-director Teller (of the magic duo Penn and Teller), Posner brilliantly brought "Macbeth" into the realm of the modern horror film -- complete with redesigning one of the play's three witches to resemble Leatherface from "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" -- and the result was a bloody, bewitching triumph.
With "Midsummer," Posner has dived head first into the realm of broad comedy, and what follows is an untraditional presentation of the play which had the audience at a recent performance oftentimes doubled-over with laughter.
Sure, there are plenty of elements in this production that Shakespeare purists simply won't get behind: Marvin Gaye being played on a ukulele, a slow-motion fight sequence and song and dance number that will remind some viewers of the climax of "Slumdog Millionaire" are but a few of the things that come to mind.
However, open-minded viewers should recognize that all of Posner's updates and embellishments work for this production and this cast, and they also ring true to the spirit of Shakespeare's original play, which has always been fairly zany and more than a little surreal, with Titania, the queen of the fairies falling for a man with a donkey's head and Shakespeare taking the time to parody his own "Romeo and Juliet" via a play-within-a-play device.
For many viewers, "Midsummer" can be seen as a competition between Puck, one of the fairies of the forest (played here by Doug Hara) and Nick Bottom, a weaver and part-time actor who is the one that gets stuck with a donkey's head (played by Danny Scheie) to see who can steal the show the fastest. And fortunately, the actors entrusted with both of these roles deliver dynamic and interesting takes on these well-worn characters.
Hara brings an acrobatic grace and a charming mischievousness to the role of Puck, and as Bottom Scheie proves that is takes a very good actor to play an extremely bad actor in a wildly entertaining way.
"Midsummer" is a play that concerns itself with the joy and trials of life's passions, whether they're the arts, dreams, nature, love or sex, and Posner has taken those themes and crafted an entertaining and vibrant show that is a must-see. This has always been art intended for everyone, and that's exactly who should check out this production.
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