`A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is as close to perfect as works of art come, a withering satire of the follies of love and a brilliant celebration of the magic of the imagination.
Small wonder that Oak Park Festival Theatre has opted for the comedy twice before in its annual outdoor presentation, beginning with its inaugural production 20 years ago. No other work, moreover, is so aptly suited in theme and story to the out of doors, a saga set in a summer night and turning on the beauty, mystery and darkness inherent in a woodsy park.
Though inconsistent and fraught with problems, Tom Mula and Dale Calandra’s current production in the near west suburb is one of the festival’s more satisfying efforts. Shakespeare’s lofty celebrations are well illustrated by the Austin Gardens’ pastoral surroundings and flickering fireflies.
In one unforgettable touch, two of the four lovers in Shakespeare’s star-crossed quartet chase each other around the stage and end in a wild, hilarious romp throughout the distant corners of the park’s grassy field.
The four lovers are, as often with “Midsummer,” the sturdiest subset in this large company. Although they recall many Hermias and Helenas before them, Krista Lally and Stephanie Shaw are particularly funny as the women. Shaw’s Helena is gape-faced, indirect, hilariously confused; Lally’s Hermia, while eventually sliding into the tomboyish, acrobatic zeal usually dealt Hermia, begins with a refreshing, perky, feminine youthfulness-an earnest young woman hypnotically in love.
Their interplay with Kevin Theis (as Demetrius) and Matthew Pestorius (Lysander) is crisp and memorable. As a member of the couple higher up on the social ladder, Joseph Wycoff’s Theseus, delivering Shakespeare’s great soliloquy on the poet, the lover and the lunatic, provides one of the high points of the production, linking the great themes of the play in a haunting moment.
Co-director Tom Mula, a natural to play Bottom, and his so-called mechanicals are less successful. Mula himself is a raffishly likable, almost bookish Bottom, his timing and delivery on target throughout. But as an ensemble, he, C.C. Cook, Kevin Farrell, Page H. Hearn and Tim Herbert succeed in their “Pyramus and Thisbe” only in fits and starts. Dizzy hilarity, requisite of their bungled attempt at high art, never materializes.
Like so many “Midsummers” of late, this one suffers most with its fairies, the most exotic layer of Shakespeare’s brilliantly constructed social pyramid. Johnny Lee Davenport as Oberon and Angela Iannone as Titania are stiff and unconnected. Colleen Kane’s Puck is a dark, manic adventurous portrayal, at least, resembling a Macbethian witch at times, though sometimes cartoonishly so.
Transposing her unforgettable final speech until after the bows, in any event, is a nice touch, a rousing interpolation celebrating the grand salute to reality and illusion that makes this one of Shakespeare’s most eminently ponderable delights.
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“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” plays through Aug. 14 at the Austin Gardens in Oak Park. Phone 708-524-2050.
