A Midsummer Night's Dream: a magical circus full of fairies, scantily-clad lovers, an ass and a glory hole
20 Jul 2018

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Dahlia Katz

In my review of Romeo and Juliet, I waxed rhapsodic about the joys of spending an evening in the open air at Shakespeare in High Park. Actually I have waxed rhapsodic in every review of Shakespeare in High Park over the years. But this being Canada, this is the first year I have seen two productions back to back without being subjected to a downpour interrupting one of them. Not only is the experience double the culture and entertainment value, it also points out just how versatile the setting is. And just how versatile, and I need to add exuberant, the cast is.

A Midsummer Night's Dream was the first production I ever saw at the ampitheatre in High Park, and it is a play that I'm sure I will see again. It is perfectly suited to Shakespeare in the great outdoors: it is silly, funny and, it's only claim to seriousness is a Shakespearean stab at meta-theatricality. A quartet of lovers have their signals crossed while a troupe of fairies are play revenge games on each other. The fairy Oberon, a very dashing Jason Cadieux (Love and Information, The Wedding Party, King Lear), gets his hands on a love potion, that is applied to the eyes (sly theatre symbolism as well as the obvious love is blind metaphor), and hi-jinks ensue.

Upping the comedy and theatricality, director Tanja Jacobs (La Bete, Love and Information) turns the stage into a circus tent and floods it with jugglers and scantily-clad acrobats. Peter Fernandes (Love and Information, Onegin, King Lear) is not only Puck and our host, but also a comic magician. It is a smooth way to ease the audience into the magical events to happen and Fernandes is so amiable, and so hungry for applause in an old time show biz parody, that he strolls away with every scene he graces. A casual thumbs-up stopped the show until the laughter died down, wielding a slice of pizza did the same with groans of disgust and delight.

The four lovelorn humans are mainly defined by their desires, we really don't need to know more about them. Amaka Umeh (James and the Giant Peach, This is for You Anna, Sister Act, Jesus Christ Superstar) is sensible in all things but her love for David Patrick Flemming (What a Young Wife Ought to Know), even if only because she has been promised to another nobleman. Her befuddled slow burn when the love potion inevitably goes wrong, is hilarious to watch. The nobleman she has been promised to is Jakob Ehman (The Circle, Nature of the Beast, Cockfight, Donors, Firebrand), who is a macho Mediterranean stereotype, posturing and suave to the point of sleazy, always leading with his tight pants bulge. He is the only one who gets to milk the unfortunate tendency of this production to indulge in semaphore to order to get the bard's iambic pentameter across the floodlights. With his character it is classic buffoonery. 

Rachel Cairns (Bunny, Hamlet) is the fourth corner of the quadrangle and she is desperately in love/lust with Ehman. She gleefully debases herself and explicitly offers her abundant charms until Ehman no longer rejects her. Then she isn't so sure. Her "abundant charms" are on display as the four strip down to tighty whities the better to entice, challenge, and appear vulnerable. As all four are fine physical specimens, this costuming choice is to be applauded. When Flemming and Ehman face off by ripping open, and then off, their shirts, the temperature on a hot summer night climbed a few more degrees.

The fairy queen Titania is given a regal treatment by Naomi Wright (Kiss, Julius Caesar, A Room of One's Own) who quite deserves the acrobat minions who carry her about. And echo her every utterance with the production's other excellent use of semaphore. Titania's dose of love potion leaves her entranced by the hack actor Bottom. He has been victimized by two plot contrivances: 1) his troupe is rehearsing in the magical forest/circus tent, and, 2) Puck has transformed Bottom's head into that of a donkey. Fortunately Cadieux plays Bottom and he has a great time being not only a self-centred egotistical actor, but also a literal ass.

The scenes satirizing theatre, and Cadieux nails them, culminate in a weird epilogue that may have made more sense in Shakespearean time. There are a lot of references packed into a rather lengthy play within a play. It comes very close to stalling the momentum that has been built. Jacobs grabs a page from Charles Ludlam and utilizes Mac Fyfe's physical comedy skills to have him transform himself from an imperious duke to a reluctant drag performer repeatedly and rapidly. With pratfalls. 

The bit also serves to remind the audience of just how many quick changes there have been throughout. Offstage in one outfit and character, then, in a split second, back as another. Thematically and in plot, A Midsummer Night's Dream is a three-ring circus and Jacobs treats it as such. The clowning is broad - Ehman and Cairns 69, Cadieux winks through a glory hole joke (a salute to the nearby cruising grounds?), and Fyfe is the butt of a rimming gag - and successful. Sexual innuendo plays well on a hot summer night. Whether Shakespeare's ruminations on theatre shine through is debatable, but Jacob's, the cast's and the creative's love for theatre does. And that love is as infectious as Fernandes' sleight of hand shtick, everyone will wax rhapsodic.