Midsummer

Hearing Shakespeare’s elevated language and iambic pentameter spoken with today’s casual cadence is an extraordinary thing, particularly because these performers have had significant classic training to keep that very thing from happening by accident. It lands strangely on the ear, which not only accentuates the comedy written in the script but gives way to additional opportunities for humor by the lovers and the motley crew of mechanicals.

All this showcases a remarkable discipline and skill-set possessed by every performer on stage, made even more remarkable with the realization they are also performing the large-scale musical “Hunchback of Notre Dame” in repertory.

Still, not everything works in this production.

The modern-day staging concept gets a bit muddled in M.A. Taylor’s portrayal of Puck as a head-banging rocker ala Motley Crue, which is chronologically at odds with other goings on.

Assorted fairies (Olivia Kaufmann, Mackenzie Wright) and elves (Dan Hoy, Andrew Kotzen, Mickey Patrick Ryan), as well as some music choices by Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen, seem similarly out of sync.

And, of course, some theater purists may balk at this reconstruction’s insertion of contemporary phrases and gender-correcting terminology into Shakespeare’s sacrosanct prose and poetry.

But Puck’s play-ending apology accounts for most of these occurrences. And his earlier observation — “What fools these mortals be” — seems to cover for the rest.