Review: St. Louis Shakespeare Festival's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM is Delightfully Amusing

St. Louis Shakespeare Festival continues celebrating their 25th Anniversary Season with a touring production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The 90-minute adaptation, presented as their annual TOUR CO production, will visit 24 city and county parks between August 19 and September 12th.

This lively adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream features original music conceived and composed by director Tre’Von Griffith. Using only 6 actors, Griffith tells Shakespeare’s story of the King Oberon, Queen Titania, the fairies, the lovers, and the mechanicals.

Using just costume changes, vocal inflection, and physicality each actor manages multiple roles. They switch back and forth between characters like chameleons changing colors while chatting in the Shakespearean dialogue as if it’s their preferred vernacular.

To be completely transparent, A Midsummer Night’s dream and its overlapping stories has never been a personal favorite. It is produced often. I’ve seen and reviewed it, or an adaptation of it, at least four times in the past two years. I’ve always thought there is just too much going on with its many subplots. There’s never been a production of A Midsummer Night’s dream that I’ve loved, until now.

This TOUR CO production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is special. It is delightfully amusing and filled with crowd pleasing performances. The ensemble dazzles and wows. It is just fun.

It takes an immense amount of rehearsal for an actor to perfect one of Shakespeare’s characters, learn their lines, and be able to deliver the early modern English with conversational and emotive flair. So it is beyond comprehension how well rehearsed this traveling troupe of actors must be to comfortably inhabit this type of Shakespearean schizophrenia. Credit Griffith and his actors for their preparation and rehearsal investment.

But Griffith hasn’t cast amateur or inexperienced actors. His company is comprised of highly trained and talented artists whose work has been admired in many productions on local stages and beyond. Norah Berry (Hermia/Tom Snout/Titania), CB Brown (Demetrius/Nick Bottom), Tiélere Cheatem (Helena/Hippolyta/Peter Quince), Mel McCray (Lysander/Francis Flute), Zay Williams (Egeus/Snug/Robin/Puck), and Christina Yancy (Theseus/Oberon) amaze in truly inspired and vibrant portrayals. They act, they sing, they dance, and they enthrall. 

The full-scale production features Brandin Vaughn’s colorful and textured costumes and Seth Howard’s versatile set design. Vaughn’s costumes were especially critical to Griffith’s storytelling. His designs were simple enough to allow for quick changes without sacrificing visual appeal and playful details. Check out Helena’s balloon skirt and matching head bow, the embroidery on the back of the mechanical’s jumpsuits, and Titania’s reflective three-dimensional jacket. Every costume piece makes a statement that defines the character.

Kudos to production manager Colin O’Brien, stage manager Britteny Henry, the production staff, and the board operators who managed the sound. For just the second tour stop these backstage professionals impressed. Actors, sound effects, and music were on cue and easily heard.

Griffith and the actors make Shakespeare accessible and engaging for young and old. Their work will entertain both aficionados and people who’ve never read a sentence of a Shakespeare play. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is enjoyable for all as evidenced by the tween’s hearty belly laughs on my right and the elderly person on my left who leapt to their feet to applaud the actor’s efforts at the curtain call.