Review: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM Makes True Love Merry at Door Shakespeare

"The course of true love never did run smooth"...so quotes William Shakespeare in his popular comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream. Door Shakespeare heightens that famous line in this rousing, high energy romp at Björklunden Garden in Baileys Harbor this summer. Former Milwaukee Repertory Theater Artistic Director and Door County resident Joseph Hanreddy personally stamps Shakespeare's forest fairies and lover's magic with an inventive blend of mayhem that includes some countrified music for the audience's pleasure.

Shakespeare's night of forest revelry pairs young Lysander with Hermia, against her father's wishes, and Demetrius, who adores Hermia, with the discouraged Helena left unloved.--although this lovers' quartet only realizes marital bliss in the final scenes. Fairy royalty Titania and Oberon create their own emotional feud, which leads to Oberon's servant Puck trying to undo the magical spells and straighten out "True Love's" mismatched course. A plot played quite to the top of comedic hilarity with actors dressed in Karin Simonson Kopischke's kitschy garments and fairy costumes adorned with beautiful masks and headpieces delights an audience's imagination.

Elegant as ever, Marti Gobel gives the fairy queen Titania a sensual edge and doubles as the duchess Hippolyta being married to the Athenian Duke, Thesus. Her match, John Taylor Phillips, warms Oberon's regal personality delivering disarming energy, as he also doubles as Thesus. Phillips' playful charms crossover to his relationship with Demetrius E. Troy's divine, masculine Puck. Sometimes, Oberon and Puck plant themselves in the theater's front and center rows, even eating the audience's treats, while discussing the night's affairs of the heart with those around them.

For the younger foursome, Anne E. Thompson's Helena rings true in her unrequited love for Ty Fanning's Demetrius. and bests Carley Cornelius's Hermia in their girl to girl spats, a real quarrell over one of these handsome catches. Cornelius imbues Hermia with an edgy spunk which Joe Boersma's Lysander loves, and the four eventually come to peace, the women having their way on this road to marriage that their class approves of.

Be sure to note James Carrington's Peaseblossom, a fairy servant decked out in pink sweet peas from head to toe, and when dressed again in pink while feigning Pyramus in the play to celebrate the Duke's nuptials. Gobel's two daughters Freedom and Jamaica, star on stage as tiny fairies when attending to their mother's Titania. Neil Brookshire convincingly inhabits Nick Bottome, as Titania's unabashed donkey lover and theatrical mechanic, similar to Joe Bianco. Bianco does a marvelous Mustardseed and Tom Snout's "wall," the classy and dry indifference to his surroundings spoken in these dual roles a surprise, contemporary element.

While Hanreddy emphasizes the comic antics and dialogue in Shakespeare's play, especially in producing the play within a play, the tragedy of Thisbe and Pyramus, families and more importantly children, will adore the exaggerated context in this staging. Perfect entertainment as an introduction to Shakespeare while Kospischke's costumes, together with Lighting Designer Aaron Sherkow, deliver high impact visuals beneath Bjorklunden's magnificent trees.

On stage "True Love" twists and turns under the stars this summer and Shakespeare's happy ending finds a merry, magical home at Door Shakespeare. Take family and friends, little ones and middle tween ones, and remember the mysterious part of any midsummer night's dream rests in that true love eventually prevails. True love welcomes those in the theater, on the beach, anywhere in Door County and at any age in the audiences' lives.

Door Shakespeare presents A Midsummer Night's Dream at Björklunden in Baileys Harbor through August 22. For further information, performance schedule, Annual Gala on Sunday, July 31, Door Shakespeare Wine Nights, or to purchase tickets, please call: 920.839.1500 or www,doorshakespeare.com

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