This spin on the Bard is a bit wobbly
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Written by William Shakespeare. Directed by Tanja Jacobs. Until September 2 at the High Park Amphitheatre, 1873 Bloor St. W. CanadianStage.com or 416-368-3110.
The great Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini said, “Nothing is more honest than a dream.” He even transformed his films into dreams, blurring time and plot and logic into a greater truth.
What a dream, then, to match his enigmatic style with the dreamworld that is Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, as one half of Canadian Stage’s Shakespeare in High Park series (running in rep with
Romeo and Juliet) — which is what director Tanja Jacobs intends to do, according to her note displayed on the large panels that line the audience’s path- way to the High Park Amphitheatre.
However, in Fellini style, the fantastical events that occur over one night in Athens (or in Rome, in Jacobs’s version) would be elevated beyond frivolous games of trickery, magic and hormones.
In Jacobs’s production, there’s a lot of emphasis on making light of these dreams, so much that it overwhelms any impactful meaning.
After an opening mélange of clownish lazzis from whom the carnies who perform the playwithin-the-play eventually emerge, we get the (noticeably stiff and repressed) introductory conflict between Hermia (Amaka Umeh) and her love Lysander (David Patrick Flemming) against Hermia’s father Egeus (Gordon Bolan) and the man he has betrothed Hermia to, Demetrius (Jakob Ehman). Egeus, in stern, black squareframe glasses, is the prototype of the strict, old-fashioned fa- ther, facing off against the preppy pastels of Hermia’s yellow dress and Lysander’s armygreen golf jacket (costume design by Victoria Wallace). Mac Fyfe, meanwhile, shows uncharacteristic restraint as Theseus, the Duke who presides over the dispute, nearly to the point of concern.
Though a bit awkward, the oppression of this first scene is meant to offset the burst of en- ergy and sexual hijinks when the two romantic teens flee into a nearby theme park, pursued by Demetrius and Hermia’s longtime friend Helena (Rachel Cairns, who gives her character a stubborn backbone, instead of relying on grovelling) — lovesick for Demetrius, free from adult rule.
Jacobs goes all in with her theme-park theme, called here, understandably, Fairyland. King Oberon (Jason Cadieux) is a lion tamer, and Queen Titania (Naomi Wright) is a dancer who makes her entrances and exits skipping in unison with her chorus in matching ruffled costumes.
Oberon’s right-hand-fairy Puck (Peter Fernandes) is an illusionist, in the clearest connection in Jacobs approach. There’s less thought apparent in the players, who rehearse the tragedy Pyramus and Thisbe in between their carny jobs at the park.
As the opening scene leans too hard into the austere side, Jacobs lets the rest of the play run wild, jamming in jokes that can’t always land. Quince (Jenny Young) is an entertainingly uptight stage director, but an aside that makes fun of the cross-gender casting in her play is unclear and quickly tossed away.
At one point, Puck appears in an Italian biking costume as yet another surface-level reminder of the play’s setting (others are snippets of Rigoletto and a puzzling accent that hits Demetrius under the fairies’ love spell). And cartoonish sound effects are hit or miss, but a missed cue on a particularly exaggerated punch can send the actors into corpsing fits — and it’s not a good sign if that gets the biggest laugh.
Jacobs might be as much of a dreamer as Fellini, and clearly isn’t at a loss for ideas. But these dreams come up a bit short, honestly.