Director James Fowler and Open Fist Theatre Company discover astonishing new depth and meaning in a centuries-old classic by transposing William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream from ancient Greece to the Antebellum South.

We’re now in Athens, Georgia, circa 1855, where plantation owner Theseus (Bryan Bertone) is soon to tie the knot with southern belle Hippolyta (Heather Mitchell), and Egeus (Alexander Wells) is now a shotgun-toting member of the landed Georgia gentry insistent that his daughter Hermia (Sandra Kate Burck) marry Demetrius (Devon Armstrong) despite her insistence that she will wed no other than Lysander (Dylan Wittrock), himself pined after by Hermia’s best friend Helena (Ann Marie Wilding).

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the plantation, Oberon (Phillip C. Curry) and Titania (Ash Saunders) toil as slaves while leading secret lives as King and Queen of the Fairies, and Peaseblossom (Syanne Green), Cobweb (Erica Mae Mcneal), Moth (Azeem Vecchio), and Mustardseed (Malik Bailey) lead double lives too as slaves by day and fairies by night.

As for weaver Nick Bottom (Michael A. Shepperd), bellows mender Francis Flute (Bailey), tinker Tom Snout (Mcneal), joiner Snug (Vecchio), and tailor Robin Starveling (Green), director Fowler reimagines them as slaves enlisted to entertain their masters with “the most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe” under the direction of carpenter Peter Quince (Debba Rofheart), who is white and British, make of that what you will.

Shakespeare purists can rest assured that the Bard’s text remains intact.

What has changed is the subtext, i.e., a ruling class confident in their entitlement and an oppressed lower class whose only freedom comes in dreams, or when putting on a show for the master.

Though it’s hardly innovative to transpose Shakespeare plays from Elizabethan times to other historical eras, such alterations rarely extend further than costume choices.

Not so with Fowler’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which the lives led by its star-crossed quartet of lovers and those lived by characters outside their hermetically sealed world have perhaps never come across so separate and unequal.

Audience members in search of laughter can rest assured; A Midsummer Night’s Dream has rarely inspired as many laughs as this one. (If you’ve never heard Shakespeare performed in Southern drawls so thick you could cut them with a knife, you’re in for a treat, and its black characters earn just as many laughs if not more in comedic turns that would do Chris Rock, Kenan Thompson, or Tiffany Haddish proud.)

Director Fowler has elicited one delectable performance after another beginning with Shepperd’s scene-stealing, scenery-chewing delight of a Bottom.

Armstrong, Burck, Wilding, and Wittrock add up to an outrageously funny foursome, and never more so than when engaging in an extended lovers’ brawl fight-choreographed to side-splitting perfection by Nick Mizrahi.

Monazia Smith makes for the most magical of Pucks, and having her do double duty as house slave Philostrate is another inspired Fowler touch.

Curry and Saunders play their regal roles with just-right majesty; strolling thesps Bailey, Green, Mcneal, Rofheart, and Vecchio are each and every one an absolute delight; and Bertone, Mitchell, and Wells play southern gentry to do Tennessee Williams proud, albeit played for laughs.

 A Midsummer Night’s Dream scores equally top marks for its production design, from Jan Munroe’s era-evoking indoor-outdoor Southern cotton plantation set (featuring Stephanie Crothers’ exquisite scenic artistry), to Mylette Nora’s pitch-perfect 1850s costumes, to Gavan Wyrick’s strikingly gorgeous midsummer night lighting design, to Nayla Hull’s ambience-enhancing sound design choices, to Ina Shumaker and Bruce Dickinson’s properties ranging from whips to rifles to cotton balls to spell-inducing blossoms.

Add to this Faith Knapp’s choreography and Fowler’s vocal arrangements and you have two more reasons not to miss this truly unique Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Amanda Weier is production manager. Jennifer Palumbo and John Dimitri are production stage mangers. Justin Eick receives a special thank you in the program for original choreography of the lover’s quarrel. Anna-Laurie Rives shares the role of Helena with Wilding, and Mizrahi shares Demetrius with Armstrong.

It’s not at all unusual to leave a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with a smile on your face, and this one features a multitude of moments guaranteed to turn up the corners of your mouth.

Rarely if ever, however, does a Midsummer Night’s Dream leave an audience moved to tears as this one does. James Fowler’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is as moving as it is hilarious as it is ground-breaking.

Open Fist Theatre Company @ Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village. T
www.openfist.org

–Steven Stanley
July 2, 2022
Photos: Frank Ishman, John Dmitri

Tags: Atwater Village Theatre, Los Angeles Theater Review, Open Fist Theatre Company, William Shakespeare