Lakeshore Players take on Shakespeare
The Lakeshore Players stages some very ambitious plays for this season
Shakespeare in Hollywood mixes fiction with fact, magic with realism and humour with a cold helping of hard history.
The play launches the Lakeshore Players’ season at the Louise Chalmers Theatre in Pointe-Claire on Nov. 6.
It’s a fact that, in 1934, revered Austrian theatre director Max Reinhardt came to Los Angeles to shoot a film version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Hollywood with a starstudded cast, including a 14-yearold Mickey Rooney as Puck, James Cagney as Bottom and Victor Jory as Oberon.
It’s a fact that Reinhardt fled Austria in 1938 to escape the horrors of encroaching Nazism.
It’s a fact that Will H. Hays — master of the Hays Code for American film censorship — kept a sharp eye on the filming of the classic Shakespeare comedy.
It’s fiction that the “real” Puck and Oberon take a wrong turn on their way to the fairyland forest and end up on the sound stage of Reinhardt’s film. And it’s fiction that the actors hired to play Puck and Oberon in the film quit the production so that when the director stumbles across the originals, thinking they are film extras, he insists they audition for the roles.
“We’re three weeks into rehearsals and we still can’t stop laughing,” Steve Gillam said. Gillam plays Oberon.
In brief, the original Shakespearean play has interwoven plots involving a noble wedding, a band of amateur actors and a magical woods inhabited by fairies. Oberon is the King of the Fairies and Puck (played by Melanie Desjardins) is his servant. In Shakespeare in Hollywood, the two characters have very different reactions to the glitz of Hollywood.
“Puck immediately takes to the glamorous Hollywood world, but Oberon struggles,” Gillam said. “He can’t understand the way people are speaking and they don’t understand him. It’s a really well-written play. If you’re a fan of Shakespeare, you get to hear some of the original play, and if you’re not, you can enjoy a fun play about falling in love with the wrong people.”
The play, written by Ken Ludwig, won the Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play in 2004. This version is directed by Corey Castle, who was brought on board because of his experience in musical theatre. The play is not a musical, but its large cast and multiple set changes required the skills of a director who understood the nature of large-scale productions.
Lakeshore Players’ second production of the season is the Marc Camoletti sex-farce Boeing Boeing about a world traveller who serial dates airline hostesses all over the world. (Feb. 4 to 13, 2016)
The Curious Savage, written by Bryan Libero and directed by John Patrick, ends the season. The play is about a widow who inherits millions from her husband and the greedy stepchildren who have her committed to an insane asylum so that they can get their hands on the money. (April 28-May 7, 2016).
Lakeshore Players presents Shakespeare in Hollywood at the Louise Chalmers Theatre, 501 StJean Blvd., Nov. 5 to 7 and Nov. 12 to 14 at 8 p.m. and Nov. 8 and Nov. 14 at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $24, $18 for balcony, and $24 for seniors and students. To reserve, call 514-6318718. For information, visit lakeshoreplayersdorval.com.