A Midsummer Night's Dream

Tonight I went to the Contemporary Theater in Wakefield to watch a free presentation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The play was outside of the theater on a little stage. The stage was surrounded by a flower garden which actually made the set more believable. The play was free, but there was a fishbowl for donations. The play was well worth donating a couple of dollars

I am not going to bore you with the plot. Either you like Will's plays or you don't. As for me, I can tolerate most of the ones I've seen but really enjoy the humor of this comedy. 

Helena being courted by Demetrius

The play lasted about two hours. The cast was very good and ranged from five years old playing the Fairy Queen's maidens to about fifty. The "young lovers" were teens to twenty somethings. I think the highlight of the show were the two girls who played Helena and Hermia. 

One thing to note, some of the male characters were played by female players. The roles of Lysander and Nick Bottom were both played by girls. This wasn't too confusing for me because I knew the characters and the plot. It confused the hell out of Laurie and I had to explain a lot during the intermission. The girl that played Nick Bottom however, was awesome. Her performance was completely over the top just as Nick Bottom was. She was laugh out loud funny. Puck was also played by a girl, and was just as amusing. 

The stage is really an outdoor patio. There weren't any props or anything resembling a set. None the less, you got a sense of where everyone was in relation to "the woods" or where the weddings took place. I thought it was really well done. 

I have absolutely no complaints about the play and give it five stars, especially considering the cost. My only complaint was with kids. The stage is outdoors and the cast did not wear microphones. Everyone needed to be quiet to hear the actors. A couple of parents thought it was a good idea to bring their 3-5 year old kids. There is no way kids that young can sit still for two hours so they talked through it and made noises. It was pretty annoying. 

Oberon putting a spell on Titania