Midsummer Night’s Dream: Pretty, Creepy, Funny…What a Combination!

Context: I’m an English major. I like plays. I like Shakespeare. So, it made sense for me to get tickets to BYU’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. I heard it was pretty good, so I was excited to see it.

Description: I’m not going to go into a detailed summary of the plot of Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’m hoping/assuming that most are familiar with the basics of the story. I’m thinking I’ll just mention the two things that stuck out to me about this particular production of the play: first, the playbill introduced the director’s concept of using the play as a demonstration of the flow of colonization, and second, the Brazilian martial arts that inspired the movements of the fairy world.

Analysis: If not for the playbill, I wouldn’t have necessarily understood the message the director was trying to convey about colonization. Perhaps this is a reflection of lack of theater experience on my part, but I consider myself more literate in the theater world than your average person, so I don’t think we can entirely blame lack of theater training. Besides, this blog is about my views anyway. I understood the contrast between the fairy world and the Athenian world, but I didn’t connect that with colonization at all until I read the playbill during intermission. I think it was a worthy effort, but the colonization commentary was a bit of a stretch—the methods they used to communicate it just blended with the story for me so much that they didn’t even really stand out enough to communicate the message effectively. The Brazilian dancing and sounds were fun and pretty. They added a pretty cool effect to the fairy world. I actually liked the creepy, eerie feeling—it was a good reflection of the danger of the fairy world in my opinion. The only thing that really got to me is that everything was pretty, the delivery was funny, but the acting wasn’t fabulous. I was never really pulled into the Shakespeare world. I never forgot it was a play. I can’t really pin down what made the acting mediocre in particular, I just felt like it didn’t pull me in like it could have.

Educational Context: I think this production was a great example of using movements to communicate themes and messages. The visualization of a make-believe world like the world of the fairies is a huge challenge, and I think it was done well here with the Brazilian Capoeira-inspired movements. Perhaps I could take another novel, play, etc. that juxtaposes two worlds and have my students demonstrate how they would show the difference between the two worlds using movement.