Sweet Dreams

The Blair Drama Department's production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is a delightful comedy featuring professional-level acting and stage production.

The play opens with an excellently choreographed sword fight between the Athenians of Duke Theseus (Joe Howley) and the Amazons of Queen Hippolyta (Lindsay Schubert), to the theme music from the movie "Mortal Kombat." Afterwards Theseus and Hippolyta discuss their upcoming wedding, when Egeus (Cory Choy) brings his daughter Hermia (Nardos Bellete) before the Duke.

The story's conflict centers around a tricky love triangle. Egeus wants his daughter to marry Demetrius (Josh Scannell), but she loves another Athenian man, Lysander (Spencer Lee). Demetrius was engaged to Hermia's friend Helena (Jordan McCraw), but dumped her upon meeting Hermia.

Theseus gives Hermia an ultimatum: if she won't marry Demetrius, she must spend the rest of her life as a nun, or die. When Hermia begs her father to look through her eyes, Theseus reprimands, "rather your eyes must with his judgement look," prompting Hippolyta, who sympathizes with Hermia, to give Theseus the cold shoulder.

To escape the Duke's edict, Lysander and Hermia decide to flee Athens through the forest. They confide in Helena, who tells Demetrius for hope of his gratitude. Demetrius follows Hermia and Lysander into the forest, and Helena chases after Demetrius.

Elsewhere in the woods, Oberon (Jesse McIntosh) and Titania (Keiara Robinson), king and queen of fairies, argue over possession of a changeling boy. Titania refuses to yield the boy, and Oberon promises revenge. He sends his henchman, Puck (Griff Rees), to find an enchanted flower that makes a sleeper fall in love with the first person he or she sees upon waking.

Nearby, a group of crude workmen rehearse a play for the Duke's wedding festival. These foolish characters and their play-within-a-play provides much of Midsummer's humor. Bottom the Weaver (Luke Allen), the lead actor, makes such an ass of himself that mischievous Puck turns Bottom's head into a donkey's. Flute the Bellows-Mender (Sean Cooney), forced to play a woman, desperately tries to lower his voice and pleads, "Nay, let me not play a woman! I have a beard coming!"

Oberon overhears Helena chasing Demetrius through the woods, and tells Puck to use the flower on Demetrius so he'll love Helena. When Puck misinterprets the order and anoints Lysander's eyes instead, the love triangle is suddenly turned upside-down and chaos ensues.

Blair's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream follows true to Shakespeare's play with small modernizations inserted for humor. For example, Petra Quince (Samantha Henig), the workmen's organizer, brings a laptop to their rehearsal and uses a cell phone to call Bottom's house.

In another clever modification, the standard "in case of an emergency" message before the play was changed to Bottom announcing, "I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you to walk to the nearest exit."

For their epilogue, the workmen perform a cappella the doo-wop oldie "In the Still of the Night" led by Snout the tinker (Derrick Young) with his incredible singing voice. Their encore, the techno dance song "I Like to Move It," is quickly cut off by Theseus and his guards.

Kelly Newman, Drama and CAP English teacher, directs this play as her ninth production at Blair. She feels the play has been extremely successful and is confident that the last two shows will sell out.

View the website, with pictures and the play's script, at http://thespians.mbhs.edu/midsummer.

The play opened on Nov 1 and had another show on Nov 2. Upcoming performances are on Friday Nov 9 and Saturday Nov 10 at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $4 for students and $6 for adults.

Post your comments on the play using the comment form below.

Comments:
Phyllis Fleischaker, English teacher -- "They made me appreciate it [A Midsummer Night's Dream] in a way I never did before."

Erica Hartmann (stage crew) -- "From the vantage point of the fly, the play was great. Y'all out in the audience missed a great performance by the Crew, though!"