Angelina Green and Andrew Rodriguez (Photo by Deborah Egan)
Reviewed by G. Bruce Smith
Long Beach Shakespeare Company
Through April 13
RECOMMENDED
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of the most popular and widely performed of Shakespeare’s plays, and for good reason. The enchanting comedy is one of the Bard’s most accessible works and combines themes of love and otherworldliness in a plot with elements that range from romantic blunders to magical mischief.
The Long Beach Shakespeare Company’s current production underscores the comedy and does so with great success – though purists might lament the underplaying of the fantasy’s more bewitching features.
Most of the action takes place in the woodland realm of Fairyland outside Athens, where lovers Hermia (Angelina Green) and Lysander (Andrew Rodriguez) have fled because Hermia’s father Egeus (Dylan J. Sampson) has threatened his daughter with death if she does not marry his choice of groom, Demetrius (Robbie Macey). Meanwhile, Helena (Jessica Wienecke) is obsessively in love with Demetrius, who shuns her because he is smitten with Hermia. All four star-crossed lovers end up in the moonlit forest where Oberon, King of the Fairies (Dylan J. Sampson), seeing the messy romantic entanglements, seeks to fix the problem by having his sprite Puck cast a spell on Demetrius so that he falls in love with Helena. Alas, that plan goes awry, resulting in heated conflict and confusion among the foursome.
The fairies have their own domestic intrigue. Oberon wants a “changeling child” that Titania, Queen of the Fairies (Shane Murphy), has taken under her wing. Titania refuses, and Oberon hatches a plan to humiliate Titania.
The third subplot follows a group of amateur actors rehearsing the play they are to perform before the upcoming wedding of Duke of Athens Theseus (Elias Trey Chapa) to Hippolyta (Shane Murphy). This ragged crew elicits the biggest laughs as they practice their ridiculous performance of the tragic tale of lovers Pyramus and Thisbe.
Director Holly Leveque clearly has a strong understanding of Shakespearean text as she guides her cast through the action, pumping up the comedy — both physical and otherwise. There are times, though, that both Oberon and Puck remain too fixed in place when they might better move in mischievous and fairy-like ways as they watch the mortals’ misadventures.
The cast members are consistently strong, with a standout performance by Jack Loeprich as Nick Bottom, the comically melodramatic weaver who plays Pyramus and who, for a short while, is the object of Titania’s affection when he is turned into a donkey by Oberon. Julianne Holmquist is respectable as Quince, who ends up playing Thisbe, but it would have been more fun had that role been played by a man.
The set (Jessie Luu) and lighting (Sharon Stukey) designs are workable, but do not capture the full magic of the moonlit forest.
Long Beach Shakespeare Company at Helen Borgers Theater, 4250 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach. Saturdays, 8 pm, Sundays, 2 pm, Friday, April 5, 8 pm. Running time: Two hours and 30 minutes with an intermission.
