THEATER REVIEW: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” @ Ohio Shakespeare Festival by Lisa DeBenedictis

Through Sun 8/22

 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of William Shakespeare’s most produced plays, is a farcical love story, ideal for a bereft audience that has been cooped up in quarantine during the Covid pandemic. In the uproarious presentation staged by the Ohio Shakespeare Festival outdoors at Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens, Tess Burgler deftly directs a very talented and hilarious cast. Burgler manages to keep her audience invested in each character’s plight and desire for true love. She also keeps her characters relatable to contemporary audiences — no easy feat in a play that features fairies, love potions, and a narcissist transformed into a donkey.

Theseus, Duke of Athens, gallantly portrayed by Brian Pedaci, has conquered the Amazons in battle, and has been charmed by his new subjects’ queen, Hippolyta, portrayed with alluring delight by DeLee Cooper. As the play opens, we learn that they are planning to wed. Bottom, the weaver, played with uproarious jocularity by scene-stealer Ryan Zarecki, and other equally hilarious tradesmen Snug the Lion (Dimitri Georgiadis), Snout the Wall (Geoffrey Darling), and Starvling, Moonshine (Mark Stoffer) offer to prepare a play for the betrothed.

Egeus (Evan Wilhelms) interrupts with his daughter Hermia, portrayed defiantly by eMjay Ross, and her two suitors: Demetrius (Brandon Sapp) and Lysander (Peter Ruiz), and implores Theseus to command Hermia to marry Demetrius while she loves Lysander. Hermia and Lysander secretly plan to defy her father and Theseus and elope. The young lovers confide in Helena, portrayed with preposterous wit by comedienne Natalie Steen, Demetrius’ jilted sweetheart, and she goes straightaway to inform Demetrius of their plan. The four young lovers get lost in the dark in the woods and are visited by fairies who are ruled by the fairy king Oberon (Derrick Winger), and his queen Titania (Holly Hughes). With the help of his servant Puck, all is straightened out after a few comical mishaps.

Costume designers Marty LaConte and Kelsey Tomlinson, lighting/head designer Buddy Taylor and music director/composer Scott McKenna Campbell (who also plays Puck) all share in director Tess Burgler’ s notable achievement in making this well-worn play a jubilant triumph. The fairy’s music and costumes become a momentous part of the show.

Nathan Hoyle, Chrissy Margevicius, James Alexander Rankin, Hannah Storch and Karen L. Wood round out the cast as part of Fairyland. Steen, Sapp, Ruiz and Ross as the two sets of young lovers are directed to give remarkable performances that are romantically relatable despite their broad humor.  In the end Bottom steals the show with brilliant humor, but the whole cast is bodacious and distinguished.

Make sure you arrive in time for the Greenshow.  It’s brilliantly funny and worth the price of admission in its own right.

ohioshakespearefestival.com/midsummer

[Written by Lisa DeBenedictis]

 

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