3/23/06 Reactions to Tina Landau's "Midsummer Night's Dream"
Reactions to Tina Landau's Midsummer Night's Dream:
Awful. Left at intermission (after 1 1/2 hours). I should have stayed to see it through, in the interest of some kind of fairness, but I couldn't stand to see the last scene which would have been painful. And I was with friends. Lavish set design made no sense--just "postmodern" (not really) glitz.
Lots of steel poles that fairies hung from and walked through above (spikes extending allowed them to move)--had someone read The Baron in the Trees or something? Sometimes they hung by ropes, once in hammocks. Question was: why? What did it say?
Acting uniformly awful (Helena was ok; in fact, the lovers were the least offensive, got some good jokes, but not really interesting, didn't push it. Lysander indicated he was getting horny by heavy breathing. Period.). Trying to be slick but not even that. Casting awful (men cast only for beefcake?). Theseus/Oberon was the worst. From the moment he opened his mouth, I knew we were in trouble. Didn't seem to have a clue. Egeus seemed kind of like an old drunk (the actor, and consequently the character) and went up on his lines a bit. Which was funny because he returned as Peter Quince, who was played as a derelict (why?).
Fairies were homoerotic beefcake in little shorts and climbing harnesses and some kind of bathing caps. Why? Some kind of attempt at campy, edgy sexuality which failed.
Music all live and insipid. Band was called "Groovelily" which may say it all. Spells were sung, which might have added something to an interesting production.
I have never seen the Mechanicals--bottom, especially--try so hard to be funny and fail so completely.
Whole production was VERY EFFORTFUL.
Main thing is that there was no intelligence and no idea behind the production (David Bradshaw would say that it didn't have an idea in its pretty little head, only, believe me, it wasn't pretty). Just glitz done very badly.
(I wonder if my reactions would have been so vehement if Roger and Zakia hadn't been with me. I hope so. I think so. I know that the final number before intermission, a full-out production number led by Puck and obviously titled "All Shall Be Well" (repeated over and over and over) really made me want to throw up. The very worst kind of Broadway cheese.
Awful. Left at intermission (after 1 1/2 hours). I should have stayed to see it through, in the interest of some kind of fairness, but I couldn't stand to see the last scene which would have been painful. And I was with friends. Lavish set design made no sense--just "postmodern" (not really) glitz.
Lots of steel poles that fairies hung from and walked through above (spikes extending allowed them to move)--had someone read The Baron in the Trees or something? Sometimes they hung by ropes, once in hammocks. Question was: why? What did it say?
Acting uniformly awful (Helena was ok; in fact, the lovers were the least offensive, got some good jokes, but not really interesting, didn't push it. Lysander indicated he was getting horny by heavy breathing. Period.). Trying to be slick but not even that. Casting awful (men cast only for beefcake?). Theseus/Oberon was the worst. From the moment he opened his mouth, I knew we were in trouble. Didn't seem to have a clue. Egeus seemed kind of like an old drunk (the actor, and consequently the character) and went up on his lines a bit. Which was funny because he returned as Peter Quince, who was played as a derelict (why?).
Fairies were homoerotic beefcake in little shorts and climbing harnesses and some kind of bathing caps. Why? Some kind of attempt at campy, edgy sexuality which failed.
Music all live and insipid. Band was called "Groovelily" which may say it all. Spells were sung, which might have added something to an interesting production.
I have never seen the Mechanicals--bottom, especially--try so hard to be funny and fail so completely.
Whole production was VERY EFFORTFUL.
Main thing is that there was no intelligence and no idea behind the production (David Bradshaw would say that it didn't have an idea in its pretty little head, only, believe me, it wasn't pretty). Just glitz done very badly.
(I wonder if my reactions would have been so vehement if Roger and Zakia hadn't been with me. I hope so. I think so. I know that the final number before intermission, a full-out production number led by Puck and obviously titled "All Shall Be Well" (repeated over and over and over) really made me want to throw up. The very worst kind of Broadway cheese.
posted by Graham at 1:51 PM
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