A Midsummer Night's Dream at ArtsEmerson

A Dip in a Dream

by Shae McDonald

March 14, 14

       A spectacularly exciting ride that leaves you breathless is what the production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, at Cutler Majestic Theatre, left you feeling. In this version of a classic play by Shakespeare, the director took on a different interpretation, as done often with this play. The fairy world was not made up of people, but made of puppets. This was a very effective and interesting way to portray they fairy world. I have seen many productions of A Midsummer, and I can’t compare this production to any of the others because it was so different. Puck was quite the character, as he was made up of miscellaneous objects held and manipulated by three people. There were pros and cons to the fact that he was a puppet, but overall it is more effective when Puck is human. A fault of the puppet was the fact that a great part of Puck is his facial expressions, but with the puppet you can’t tell what he is thinking. Another quite disappointing part was the use of costumes, which were little to none. With this said it was quite impressive how the small cast switched between characters so flawlessly. Over all this production was hysterical and a great interpretation of the countless productions of A Midsummer. This one should not be missed, nor ignored because the cast is an ensemble, and they rely on each other more often than not.