Review: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM at A Noise Within

Positively dreamy from start to finish.

Apologies for the soundbite. After one has experienced a certain number of productions of Shakespeare’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, one runs out of clever adjectives to celebrate the really good ones. So if the not-very-original assessment above makes yours truly come off like a besotted junior high school girl circa 1955, I’ll just have to own it. Only, take yourself to Foothill Boulevard in Pasadena and see what an absolute garden of delights A Noise Within has made of Shakespeare’s woodsy comic romance, and see what you have to say about it.

Visually and acoustically, from performances to pacing, this DREAM directed by Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott is so beautifully thought out and rendered that the Noise Within brain-trust should consider filming it for posterity (yeah, yeah, it's not the same experience). The production begins with a rainstorm interrupting a wedding announcement in a buttoned-down city-state and concludes, some two and a half sumptuous hours later, with a celebration in Fairyland. In between, some clothes are shed, laborers try their hand at acting, and sprites, spirits and their accessories of mischief emerge from every corner of the stage (including the ceiling). As "rude mechanicals" director Peter Quince (played by Alex Morris) might mangle it, “all for your delight/ We are not here.”

Except they are here, and delights they most decidedly supply. This is a comedy, after all, which the Elliotts and their technical team play up while still lacing the proceedings with a dose of menace. With all those snake-like lighting cords and shifting scenery, you never know… maybe those lovers and ass head-sporting Nick Bottom won’t make it out of the woods after all.

Many readers will be over-familiar with the DREAM and its four intersecting storylines. The pair of lovers, Hermia (Erika Soto) and Lysander (Riley Shanahan), Helena (Jeanne Syquia) and Demetrius (Rafael Goldstein) who flee into the woods of Athens only to stumble into the entanglement of the warring Fairy King Oberon (Zach Kenney) and his queen Titania (Trisha Miller). In the same forest, Quince, Bottom (Frederick Stuart) and the ragamuffin band of laborers/mechanicals assemble to rehearse a play they intend to perform for the marriage of Duke Theseus to Amazon Queen Hippolyta (Kenney and Miller again). Oberon and his servant Puck (Kasey Mahaffy) work some enchantment on the lovers and on Bottom, causing much mischief.

A production this suffused with delights has so many highlights. Here are but a select few…

There’s the opening scene in which a posturing Theseus delivers his wedding pledge to Hippolyta (Miller’s Amazon Queen is clearly having none of it) in front of a group of applauding toadies. Every attendee wears the same black suit, black bowler hat and black umbrella. All except for a certain red-headed guest whose umbrella is also defiantly red, and who flashes a wicked grin at the crowd before departing. In addition to providing the necessary exposition, the scene includes a rainstorm that sends everybody fleeing. The scene is beautiful, dynamic and hooks us instantly, and everything gets even more enchanting from there.

Once we move into the woods, Frederica Nascimento’s stage turns into a surreal dreamscape. Astral projections place us somewhere in the ether, and characters scramble along a long horizontal back wall as though it were some kind of jetty. Our feathered, skullcap-wearing fairies (costumes by Angela Balogh Calin) make liberal use of lamps and lighting cords. As the action unfolds, thanks to the combined efforts of Nascimento, Calin, lighting designer Ken Booth and composer/sound designer Robert Oriol, there is frequently something magical to take in.

This includes the acting. Soto and Syquia establish some excellent frenemy chemistry. From the squealing jubilation of Soto’s Hermia (she gets an engagement ring from Lysander, after all) to Syquia mournfully discovering the trunk containing her friend’s veil, the two actresses establish a sisterly bond. In the Act 3 dust-up between the four lovers, as things are getting really zany, the two lasses sit on the ground while Helena cites their history to explain why the perceived mocking (for which Helena blames Hermia) is hurtful. Hermia does not know what’s going on, and Soto turns “I understand not what you mean by this,” into a great laugh line. The subsequent catfight is equally hilarious as a shirtless Shanahan and Goldstein – both enchanted and in total doofus mode - strike kung fu poses.

Over in the mechanical part of the woods, things are just as comedically lithe. As prone as actors often are to over-hamming Bottom, Stuart’s rendition is anything but. Tilting against the attention-seeking blowhard-ery built into the character, Stuart’s Bottom is no “bully, but more of a pawn in fate’s hands who discovers he enjoys the attention. And the ass head he wears for his frolics with Titania (with whom he shares a lovely dance) is a full-on, head-covering mask. The production rips through rather than lingers over the climactic performance of Pyramus and Thisbe – comic gem though it is.   

When he goes into mayhem-creating mode, Mahaffy’s rock star Puck employs a guitar. He frequently shares the stage with the production’s musical supernova, Cassandra Marie Murphy whose First Fairy beautifully fronts all of the production’s songs.

Murphy delivers not a single sour note. Ditto this DREAM.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM continues through November 12 at A Noise Within3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena.

Photo of Cassandra Marie Murphy (front), Trisha Miller (back) and the fairies by Craig Schwartz

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