Although I have seen this fanciful work staged a number of times, when it is performed in Topanga, I am entranced like a kid who runs away to the circus–by the enchantment, the disbelief and the wonder, the fairies, the choreography. A production at Dorothy Chandler a few years ago seemed, flat, stark and hardly worth watching.
However, our Canyon, full of thick vegetation, winding roads and steep cliffs with a natural outdoor amphitheater, is the perfect marriage of environment and play between the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum and Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Topanga means "a place above," a name given to our area by the Tongva (a tribe once found in the mountains near Los Angeles), so it seems a perfect setting for a fanciful, ethereal dream.
Here, carved into the canyon's rocky hillside is where A Midsummer Night's Dream should dwell.
Like Brigadoon, this play arises each summer as the Theatricum's signature piece, a treat for adults and children alike. With natural oak trees framing the stage, and stage left virtually
PHOTOS BY IAN FLANDERS  Titania, queen of the fairies (Susan Angelo, center) instructs her fairies, Jeena Yi, Lucero Garcia (left), and Rachel Appelbaum and Christine Breihan (right) in the ways of the woodland. |
Completing the vision further, during a recent Sunday afternoon performance, a gentle wind blew the costumes as if it were a part of the stage directions and soft yellow and white butterflies flew in and out of scenes like well-placed props. It was amazing. Almost on cue, two butterflies alighted on Tatiana's shoulders.
Directed lovingly by Melora Marshall, there is an accent on physicality and strong dance movements bring forth a new energy to this production. Samara Frame, as Puck, is a delightful presence performing magnificent leaps and pounces sideways like a cat with a mouse. Her sense of placement and working with the children who play fairies works especially well.
There are three interlocking plots: the wedding between Duke Theseus of Athens (Lewis Blanchard) and the Amazonian queen, Hippolyta (played magnificently by Rachae Amber Thomas); two sets of mismatched lovers: Helena (Willow Geer) and Demetrius (Jonathan Blandino); Hermia (Leslie Josette) and Lysander (Paul Turbiak); and a subplot among the fairy set, Oberon (Michael McFall), Titiania (Susan Angelo), Puck (Samara Frame) and Bottom (Earnestine Phillips). Everything takes place mostly under the light of a full moon, with the fairies complicating an already complicated plot through mischief and trickery.
"Lord, what fools these mortals be!" says Puck
Theseus and Hippolyta's announcement of their upcoming nuptials begins the play, but Hermia, in love with Lysander, refuses to follow her father's wishes to marry Demetrius. In disgust, her father cites an ancient Athenian law stating a daughter must marry the husband chosen by her father or she will be put to death. Hermia and Lysander concoct a plot to escape through the forest, away from Athens and marry in the house of Lysander's aunt.
But before eloping, Hermia tells her best friend, the fair Helena (played neatly and intelligently by Willow Geer), of her plans and Helena, in love with Demetrius, tells him of the plan in an effort to win his favor. Furious, Demetrius, pursued by Helena, leaves to hunt down Hermia and Lysander and the chase is on. Josette, as the downtrodden Hermia, turns in an honest, natural performance as a girl in love who is torn between her family and her future.
In the meantime, there is a dispute between the fairy king, Oberon, and his queen, Titania, over possession of a changeling boy. When Titania refuses to give up the child, Oberon instructs Puck to gather a flower that Oberon will make into a potion to cast a sleeping spell over Titania, causing her to fall in love with the first thing she sees upon awakening.
Noting how cruelly Demetrius treats Helena, Oberon instructs Puck to drop some of the magic juice on Demetrius' eyes, while the four are asleep in the forest. Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius and when he wakes to see Helena, he falls in love with her; now, both Demetrius and Lysander are in love with Helena and Hermia is desolated. Hilarity and mistaken love ensue, and Lysander stoically observes, "The course of true love never did run smooth."
In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the lines blur between sleep and consciousness, making possible what Maurice Hunt (Baylor University) calls, "that pleasing, narcotic dreaminess associated with fairies." In a way, Shakespeare prepares his audience to accept an alternate world, somewhere between sleep and non-sleep where all dreams live.
Rachae Amber Thomas as Hippolyta, steals the show when she is onstage (at the beginning and the end). She is a commanding presence, whether stalking Theseus or shooting an arrow through the air. Her strength played against Lewis Blanchard's Theseus works well.
In addition, Earnestine Phillips brings a wonderful glow of comedy to her role, with her fusses and gestures when she is made into an ass, and generally her knack for comedic timing.
With these closing words, the audience is brought back to reality at the end of the play with this summation:
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
–A Midsummer Night's Dream, 5. 1
Performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream continue through October 2, The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N Topanga Canyon Blvd. 90290, (310) 455-3723 or theatricum.com for performance schedule. Tickets: $32 (lower tier); $20 (upper tier); seniors, students, equity: $20/$15; children 5-11: $10.
The audience is advised to dress warmly in layers. Bring pillows or cushions for the bench seating.
