What: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Dates: Aug. 4 to Sept. 3
When: Tues.-Sat. 8 p.m./Sat.-Sun. 2 p.m.
Where: Ross Rebagliati Park
Tickets: $35 Wed. to Sun./ $10 donation Tuesdays
"Why would you go see it here when you can see a professional production of it at Bard at the Beach in Vancouver and it’s $10 cheaper there?" The question was posed by one of my colleagues in reference to conversation about the opening of The Whistler Theatre Project’s Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream this week at Ross Rebagliati Park.
Don’t go to the Whistler production because this summer’s attendance will dictate whether or not professional theatre will carry on in Whistler. Nor because Whistler needs to diversify its economy to survive challenging winter snowfalls. Don’t go because you want to support local cast member Heather Paul (who shines brilliantly in the production) or even because you are looking to do something outside of the usual nightclub scene.
Go because the Whistler Theatre Project delivers a knockout comedy for its inaugural season. Go to laugh at the director’s Larry, Moe and Curly approach to staging. Go to listen to how a tight budget unearthed an orchestra of voices. Go to be hypnotized by the commanding performance of Bottom and to follow the wonderfully evolving character of Helena. Go for the metaphorically-steeped sets, the playful costumes, the dramatic lighting. Go for the professional theatre going experience. Go for the Dream.
The Tuesday pay-what-you-can performance packed in a sold-out crowd, as was the case for all shows during the opening week. Local talent Trish Jameson serenades waiting audiences with acoustic vibrato as part of the interchanging local lineup every Tuesday.
Get ready to dream. The lights dim to a leafy stage where a bathrobe-clad cast sings the audience a lullaby. The dream theme is everywhere: bed headboard gates, pillows piled by the dozen and Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter falling into step like a bedtime prayer.
The Bard throws us right into the thick of things: The father refusing his daughter Hermia’s plea to wed Lysander. Demetrius’s unrequited love for Hermia and Helena’s unrequited love for Demetrius. All lovers flea into the wooded chaos the fairyland reaps and the fun begins.
Multiple Jessie-Award-winning director Bill Dow orchestrated a tight-knit, swear the actors were speaking modern day English show. Under his direction, the production staged in an open-air tent in Whistler’s great outdoors delves into the whole question of waking and dreaming, the conscious and subconscious. But the to-be-or-not-to-be moments are subtle, overlaid by truckloads of slapstick humour true to 16-century staging. There is also no missing Shakespeare’s lewd jokes that plant themselves firmly in adult laughs, but fly over the heads of most audience members four feet and under. The physical comedy engaged audiences even when young audiences may not have understood the full extent of the literary work.
Much of the show’s fun can also be attributed to the two male lovers whose talent and conviction never lose the audience for a minute. Mister Charming both in character and in presence, the expert comedic timing of Ryan Nelson, who plays Lysander, gives Josh Drebit, who plays Demetrius, a run for his money. However, like their characters’ childish dating antics of arm wrestling, the two match each other’s talent eye to eye. Drebit’s delivery ensured laughs even when the Bard’s lines didn’t dictate it.
Every line was played to the hilt. But it was Alex Ferguson, who played the know-it-all idiot Bottom, who stole the show. Over acting plagues the character in many productions, but Ferguson’s flare for subtleties, peaks and valleys and deadpan deliveries kept the audience in the palm of his hand.
Cailin Stadnyk as Helena can also be credited for the much-deserved standing ovation Tuesday night. I’ve marked up the Midsummer text within an inch of its life during my university career and seen the production countless times, but I’ve never related so closely with the role of Helena as I did in Stadnyk’s portrayal of her. She gave the comedic character depth, running the gamut of audience’s pity, sympathy, detest and funny bones.
A strong, singing, dancing and acting chorus of rude mechanicals and fairies kept the show glued together, along with an engaging Titania played by Johnna Wright and fierce Puck played by Chris Fassbender.
The polished performance was a credit to the actors, and to the director.
Overall, the directing delivered well-rounded characters. However, a few of the director’s character choices left me puzzled. Instead of the usual ingénue Hermia, Dow took a whining, spoiled teenager take right from the start. I didn’t agree with the choice although actor Erin Mathews gave a dedicated performance. The choice gave little contrast to Helena and the humour of the once collected Hermia emerging furious and disheveled after intermission was lost.
Dow also spun a goblin-esque Puck, one more seething with anger than meddlesome. In the monotone anger wash, I didn’t understand why Puck was meddling with the lovers: there was no joy in his recanting of his Titania trick of making the Queen of the Fairies fall in love with an ass, nor the satisfaction in causing the lovers such ill. Then all of a sudden the anger is gone and he is sensually stroking Bottom’s chest then happily snuggling a female fairy at the end.
The scattered portrayal of Oberon, whose problem was further compounded by the equally muddled acting of Del Surjik, also raised questions about the director’s vision.
The few flaws only stood out because overall everything about the production was first rate. The music direction was innovative, using vocals, percussion and hand-held instruments to build emotion and segue scenes with great dramatic effect. Clever costumes and props took on roles of their own: the cardboard lion mask stole the scene and I still can’t get the image of Bottom’s tie skirt and pasta drainer helmet out of my head. Even the rain added charm to the intimacy of the show, staged in a tent with a set that utilized a real forest backdrop.
The Bard would be proud – but Whistler shouldn’t be quite yet.
We may or may not see the day when one of Whistler’s youth, so inspired by the production, steps up to the dance bar, the vocal scales, the script, the beginning of the long training process a theatre career dictates. But hopefully we will all be there applauding the youth when he or she steps onto Whistler’s only professional stage. Like the town the theatre is set in, under the glossy entertainment lies a deeper possibility.
The real Dream is just beginning.
