Those mischievous fairies. When they’re bored, they have their fun and then complete chaos results. Luckily the fairies of A Shakespeare’s Midsummers Night’s Dream exist in a magical world where misunderstandings and star-crossed lovers can be put right by the pollen of a flower inhaled during a vivid dream.

 The Galt Gardens amphitheatre is perfect venue for a summer production of Shakespeare in the Park.
 It  looks like an actual ancient Roman/ Greek amphitheatre, though scaled down, where the classical era masses once gathered to be entertained by live theatre.

So it is great to see a talented troupe of actors including university students and popular community theatre members using this perfect venue to perform Shakespeare’s beloved comedy “ A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” They are performing this free production live in Galt Gardens every Thursday and Friday until Aug. 10.

The play is a basically a love story gone horribly wrong with hilarious results after Fairy King Oberon played beautifully by Derek Stevenson, decides he wants Fairy Queen Titania’s baby, and sets his hyperactive servant Puck on the case with the help of magical flowers designed to make the recipient fall in love with the next person or animal they see. Which is why added hilarity ensues when, somewhere along the way, the boisterous actor Bottom ( D.J Gellatly) is turned into a half man half-donkey beast, who Titania ( Camilla Pavlenko) falls in love with and has her attendants treat him with luxury.
 
Producer Kate Connolly and director Andrew Legg have brought together a talented group of actors to make this fast paced 90 some minute adaptation of the comedy really work.

While the costumes and a few props have been contemporized and there are a few anachronisms like cell phones and laptops being utilized , the dialogue is pure Shakespeare.

 There is a lot of action, especially on the part of the mischievous Puck, played perfectly by the impish Danielle Gurr, who sprints through the audience at lightning speed, all over the amphitheatre and even onto the back of one of the actors.

The lead cast members Meredith Pritchard ( Hermia), and Natalie Buckley (Helena) play squabbling sisters/ best friends and star crossed lovers of Mat Smerek (Lysander) and Daniel Howard (Demetrius) really shine jumping from love to loathing at the drop of a hat or breath of pollen.

 However the supporting cast stole the show which adds liberal doses of Monty Python to Shakespeare’s masterpiece.

  D.J Gellatly shines as the scene stealing, boisterous ham, Bottom right at the beginning of the play as one of several actors preparing a strange tragedy to eventually be performed at the wedding at the end of Midsummer Nights Dream. It’s a comedy, so you know there will be a wedding and  things end happily ever after, after all.

 

Though they don’t have many lines, actors/ stagehands Milo Smith (Quince), Flute (Mike Rolfe), Snout (Jerrin Chambers), the cigar chomping Starveling (Juanita DeVos) and Snug ( Ross Bruinsma) convey a range of emotions through just their rubbery facial expressions.

 The nimble cast use the stage well, particularly during the last big dream scene where Puck uses magic to move beatifically sleeping Hermia, Helena, Demetrius and Lysander all over the stage and up the steps like puppets on invisible strings.

 But after all is turned back to normal for the young lovers, and wedding vows are exchanged, don’t leave yet, because there is more surreal hilarity to come as the players who open the production end it by performing their tragedy for the  wedding party. 

You wouldn’t think a wall would elicit laughs, but  Snout ( Jerrin Chambers) elicits them as well with his facial expressions and interactions with the other characters. Juanita Devos is hilarious as a cigar smoking moon and sky, and Bottom and Flute ( Mike Rolfe) exuberantly over act in a suicide scene. All’s well that ends well though as the cast ends up snake dancing off the stage and into the audience.

 Though Shakespearian English can be darn near impossibly to understand, luckily love is a universal language, so the cast use cadence and emotion in their voices to keep the audience clued into the action.
You really need to see Shakespeare acted live to completely understand it. If you haven’t seen it before, this production of Midsummer Night’s Dream is a great place to start. The production runs at 7 p.m. every Thursday and Friday until Aug. 8.