Jazz transforms Utah Shakespeare Festival’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’
Lord, what fools these screwballs be.
They’re the lovers, lunatics and poets populating William Shakespeare’s blissful “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” But they’re not the mortals you usually see at the Utah Shakespeare Festival.
USF has long had a (loose) rule in its outdoor Shakespeare playhouse: No productions set in times, or climes, after Shakespeare’s own.
In the festival’s indoor Randall L. Jones Theatre, however, anything goes — and go it does — during this summer’s “Midsummer,” a delirious Jazz Age romp with streamlined style to spare.
It’s a feast for the eyes — and ears — thanks in no small measure to Jason Lajka’s streamlined art deco sets, Brenda Van Der Wiel’s luxe costumes and Barry G. Funderberg’s sprightly tunes and atmospheric sound design.
But director Kirsten Brandt goes beyond surface attitude by re-creating the frenzied pacing and dizzy business typical of silver-screen screwball comedies of the ’30s.
As the Duke of Athens (an urbane J. Todd Adams) prepares to wed the Amazonian queen Hippolyta (Melinda Parrett, in top haughty form), two potentially star-crossed couples flee to the forest.
Winsome Hermia (Kaitlin Margaret Mills) and Lysander (Riley Shanahan) run away in defiance of her father, who wants her to marry Demetrius (Marco Antonio Vega) instead. But Hermia’s friend Helena (smashing screwball Cassandra Bissell) has the hots for Demetrius, who only has eyes for Hermia and is in hot pursuit of his beloved — while Helena pursues him.
Meanwhile, a troupe of “rude mechanicals” — from weaver Bottom (James Newcomb, in hammy high gear) to bellows-mender Francis Flute (droll Eric Schabla) — rehearse a play they hope to perform for the duke and his bride.
But the forest works in mysterious ways, especially with feuding fairy monarchs Oberon (Adams) and Titania (Parrett) at cross-purposes — and using their magic against one another. Titania has a whole host of fairies at her command, but Oberon needs only plucky sprite Puck (impish whirlwind Kelly Rogers) to wreak hilarious havoc. And wreak it they do.
Director Brandt — with the able assistance of movement and fight choreographer Robert Westley — transforms many of “Midsummer’s” comic complications through strikingly stylized movements that serve as a counterpoint to Shakespeare’s dazzling wordplay.
All the madcap mayhem occasionally threatens to overwhelm the play’s magical mood — and its even more magical language. But this “Midsummer” manages to keep its balance, and its head, when all about are losing theirs.
Contact Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272. Follow @CarolSCling on Twitter.