A Midnight's Summer Dream...

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream

North Carolina Stage Company’s recent production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was a real head-scratcher. First of all, the curtain time of midnight was an extremely questionable choice. Also, not a single actor was off-book; in fact, they shamelessly carried their scripts on stage with them! Costumes ranged from poor to poorest, with little thought or continuity apparent either in aesthetic, time period, or general condition and cleanliness. The set was nothing short of appalling: arbitrarily placed music stands in the foreground, and actors awaiting their cues on beanbag chairs ON STAGE. I am all for minimalism, but this seemed much too far.

Even with lines in hand, actors still managed to flub words, lose their place, mispronounce text, and obliterate proper scansion. Were they drunk?? It was as though they’d had no rehearsal time at all! Casting choices were bizarre as well, the oddest perhaps being the diminutive Jamie Shell in a cross-gender role as Lysander, made no less strange by a moment wherein she must insult the same-height actress Charlotte Lawrence by calling her a “dwarf.” Direction seemed haphazard at best; in fact, it often appeared that people were making up blocking on the spot. Disorganization the likes of which I’ve never seen. An enormous departure from NC Stage’s general standards.

~Shamie Jell