AP News, August 24th, 2007
Who knew you could find that many new laughs in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," but the mismatched romance and bucolic buffoonery in the Public Theater's Central Park production prove surprisingly fresh and funny.
Director Daniel Sullivan has not imposed any startling concept on what is the most verdant of Shakespeare's comedies but he has populated this beguiling revival with a group of solid, accomplished actors.
At the center of the Delacorte Theater's outdoor stage stands a large, gnarled tree, around which swirls the play's amorous confusions. Its bumpy, contorted frame (the expert design is by Eugene Lee) certainly suggests that the road to true love is never straightforward.
Let's start with the young lovers, played by Martha Plimpton, Elliot Villar, Mireille Enos and Austin Lysy.
Plimpton, as Helena, and Enos, as Hermia, are particularly fetching _ the first because her strong-willed ardor doesn't take "no" for an answer in Helena's pursuit of Demetrius (Villar) _ until she thinks he is mocking her.
Enos has an equally juicy turnabout, delightfully turning Hermia's kittenish charms into a baby-doll wail when she fears Lysander (Lysy) has abandoned her for Helena.
Yet romantic bewilderment is not confined to the youngsters. It can be found in Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of the fairies. Their jealousies frame the evening's best known moments _ when Titania, under a spell concocted by Oberon, falls deliriously in love with Nick Bottom, the boisterous weaver.
Keith David is a commanding, blustery Oberon who instructs his sprightly servant _ Jon Michael Hill as a relatively earth-bound Puck _ to mischievously bewitch Titania. She is portrayed, at least in the beginning, with icy hauteur by Laila Robins, and that hauteur makes Robins' moonstruck transformation all the more delicious.
That brings us to one of the more startling enjoyments of the evening. Many productions have been sunk by its rustic characters, the so-called "mechanicals" who are meant to be funny and usually are not. In Sullivan's production, they are a riot, delivering a parade of low-comedy hijinks that suggest Shakespeare could have had a future in American vaudeville. These cheerfully dense individuals are led by that weaver, played with bellowing self-confidence by the wonderful Jay O. Sanders.
The others include Tim Blake Nelson, Ken Cheeseman, Jason Antoon, Keith Randolph Smith and most memorably Jesse Tyler Ferguson as the airily daffy Francis Flute. They are quite a crew.
All of Sanders' cohorts in comedy manage to create giddy, laugh-producing portraits as they hilariously act out a play within the play, the "tragical-comical" tale of "Pyramus and Thisbe." It's Shakespeare's sly way of tweaking actors expounding on the art of acting.
One of Sullivan's most problematic bits of stage business is the casting of children as the fairies. If they lack individuality, these small creatures add an air of other worldliness to the enchanted wood which ensnares all the principal players.
Entrapment permeates "A Midsummer Night's Dream," which runs through Sept. 9, but it is an entrapment that bewitches. Love captures its characters and takes them on an exuberant if exhausting journey. Going along for ride, particularly in this fine production, makes for joyous summer fun.
