A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM


Nobody does William Shakespeare with more originality and flair than A Noise Within, case in point their dazzlingly designed and prodigiously performed re-envisioning of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

An opening sequence featuring a dozen or so Athenians in funereal suits and black bowlers signals from the get-go that conformity must be the rule of the land presided over by Theseus (Zach Kenney) and his warrior queen fiancée Hippolyta (Trisha Miller), and it’s clear too that when the Duke offers raven-haired maiden Hermia (Erika Soto) the choice between marrying Demetrius (Rafael Goldstein), or spending the rest of her life in a convent, or (worse still) death, he means what he says.

Our unhappy heroine, however, loves not Demetrius but Lysander (Riley Shanahan), and since her bff Helena (Jeanne Syquia) wants nothing more than to have Demetrius for herself, what choice do Hermia and Lysander have but to escape from Athens (with Hermia and Demetrius in close pursuit).

And here’s when things start to brighten on the A Noise Within stage, not just for our quartet of star-crossed lovers, but also for Frederica Nascimento’s stunning scenic design, Angela Balogh Calin’s otherworldly costumes, and Ken Booth’s dramatic lighting, though even out of Athens and deep into the woods where fairy King Oberon and his Queen Titania (Kenney and Miller again) reign supreme, this is an enchanted forest unlike any you’ve seen before (as production stills make abundantly clear).

It’s here too that the impish Puck (Kasey Mahaffy) mistakenly misobeys Oberon’s orders, resulting in Helena finding herself with two equally lovestruck suitors and poor Hermia with none, and before you know it, Hermia and Helena have their claws out, Demetrius and Lysander are exchanging blows, and a troupe of strolling players (Frederick Stuart as Bottom, Alex Morris as Peter Quince, Ed F. Martin as Flute, Brendan Mulligan as Snug, Hakop Mkhsian as Starveling, and Erick Valenzuela as Snout) are donning costumes to stage The Most Lamentable Comedy, And Most Cruel Death Of Pyramus And Thisbe.

All of this adds up to two-and-a-half hours of magical merriment, and while I’d probably have opted for ninety minutes/no intermission, there’s no denying the added opportunities a full-length Midsummer Night’s Dream offers its cast of master Shakespeareans.

Directors Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott up the physical comedy to uproarious effect, and never more so than when the luminous and loony Soto and Syquia give Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams a run for their hit sitcom money, tangling in their undies with the abs-fab Goldstein and the statuesque Shanahan as their shirtless, hilariously he-man suitors.

A sensational Mahaffy steals every scene he’s in as our puckish prankster of a narrator (particularly when both upside-down and aloft), and the doubly impressive Miller and Kenney create four distinct royals between them.

Cassandra Marie Murphy (once again in gorgeous soprano voice) and fellow fairies Greta Donnelly, Rachel K. Han, and Lauren Sosa add up to four ominously black-plumed supernatural creatures nothing at all like the enchanted forest pixies we’re accustomed to seeing.

Last but most definitely not least are some of the quirkiest Mechanicals you’re likely to have seen light up a stage, led by Morris’s droll Peter Quince and supported by the delightful Martin (who doubles dramatically as Egeus), Mulligan, Mkhsian, Valenzuela, and most especially A Noise Within treasure Stuart, a nonstop treat as the strolling players’ most versatile member (at least in his own mind) who suddenly finds himself hee-hawing as Titania’s ass-headed lover.

Robert Oriol magical, mystical musical underscoring, Stephen Taylor’s fairytale-ready props, and Tony Valdes’s out-of-this-world hair and makeup complete A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s eye-grabbing production design.

Mitch Connelly, Jose Donado, Adam El-Sharkawi, Bert Emmett Edgar Landa, Tania Verafield, and Alexandra Wright are understudies.

Angela Sonner is stage manager and Talya Camras is assistant stage manager. Miranda Johnson-Haddad is dramaturg. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

For over thirty years, no SoCal theater company has surpassed A Noise Within at staging William Shakespeare in the most uniquely inventive of ways, and they’ve done it again with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as strikingly original a mid-autumn dream of a Dream as any Shakespeare lover could wish for.

A Noise Within, 3352 East Foothill Blvd, Pasadena. Through November 12. Fridays at 8:00, Saturdays at 2:00 and 8:00, and Sundays at 2:00. Also Thursday November 2 at 7:30. (See website for exceptions.)
www.ANoiseWithin.org

–Steven Stanley
October 14, 2023
Photos: Craig Schwartz

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