Last night's performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was Opera House Arts' 10th Anniversary Gala production, and the high level of excellence, fun, and magic brought to our theater by director Julia Whitworth & her talented cast was a perfect way to celebrate. This complicated and hysterical production is an excellent reminder that truly satisfying "entertainments" are never simple, but are rather created from layers of meaning and complexity.
This is why Opera House Arts does Shakespeare. The Bard was a master of crafting beautiful language and sophisticated plots around human conflicts which dog each of us to this day--and making us laugh at the whole thing. As Artistic Director Judith Jerome said at Friday night's Talk Back, our job is to constantly reinterpret and wrestle with these universal themes within our own contexts: to keep Shakespeare alive and vigorous--and ourselves as well.
Yet many productions quail at taking on the conflicts and tensions which underlie Shakespeare's comedies; or fail to interpret the richly-layered language in meaningful ways. Thus, modern productions of Shakespeare can all too often fall into the trap of our popular American culture: playing it on the surface. We don't need another sitcom! Listening to several of the Talk Back participants Friday night, I was grateful to have not previously seen productions of "Midsummer" but to have had my first introduction to the play by reading the text. It's difficult for me to believe that any woman, of any generation, can read the first act and not be caught up in the intense male-female tensions which frame this comedy.
Productions, readings, and interpretations that shy away from Shakespeare's conflicts are no doubt why so many young people yawn when they hear the word "Shakespeare," or think of these plays as merely grim school studies rather than the deeply transformative cultural artifacts they might be. Kids minds are hungry for the challenges of seeking multiple ways to address our natural conflicts. This week, I've had many parents express to me how delighted they are that our lively, somewhat dark production has kept their children enthralled from start to finish. In fact one mother told me that her usually extremely restless son said to her, as they exited the theater, "I love Shakespeare." Mission accomplished.
Thanks, Will, for these amazing plays; and thanks to our directors, Julia and Judith, and actors for daring to take them on as we do in Stonington.
Linda,
ReplyDeleteThe talk back on Friday was a perfect example of how art and life clash and communicate and speak to one another. Our guest speaker Esther Rauch brought important history to the stage, without which Julia Whitworth's production might not be possible. Having seen several live and several film productions of MIDSUMMER, I feel elastic about the contrasting thoughts on the play. Whitworth's show aside, my all-time favorite is Max Reinhardt's 1935 film version, which addresses NONE of the feminist theory you and I embrace so muscularly. Reinhardt's film is ALL lightness -- a good Hollywood deed in the naughty world of the Great Depression. And yet I found it as intellectually illuminating as any Shakespeare I've seen. So, as you and I also know, there's room for both. And all. And many. What there is no room for is irrelevancy, as you note so cogently.
Hereby my own Declaration of Independence: I will never give up on reading Shakespeare as a man of his time writing to me, a woman of my time. What DID Shakespeare mean? What DOES he mean? That's for me (and you, and Judith Jerome, and Esther Rauch, and Julia Whitworth, and the Opera House, and all the world) to answer. Not him.