by Glenn Bugala

Ann Arbor Civic Theatre’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream promises to please audiences of all ages. More than that, it is an artistic adventure. It will have swing dancing, the Mafia, the Great Depression, cat fights, and Native American spirits. How, you may ask, does a person come up with all of this? The answers must come from the script.

Pre-rehearsals
I am one of those people, yes, who believes that it’s the duty of American directors to adjust the locations of Shakespeare’s plays to places and times to which Americans can relate.

When I analyzed the script, I selected the theme I was going to try to express with the production. I believe the play deals with the battle between propriety and nature. I think that all of the characters in one way or another have to deal with the problem of behaving out of duty or following their natures. The humans who go into the woods ultimately are helped by the nature spirits, who guide them, haphazardly, toward their own true natures.

With that in mind, I looked for a place in the American consciousness where nature and propriety live side by side. I selected New York City, with its miracle, Central Park slightly out of place in the middle of our ultimate city. What better juxtaposition of propriety and nature than the Central Park West and the park itself, sitting across the street. I also liked the image of spirits running around Central Park.

What time frame? The play’s comedic style lends itself very much to the traditions of the 1930’s Screwball Comedies (eg. Bringing Up Baby, My Man Godfrey, The Lady Eve). In those movies, the women chase the men shamelessly, the rich hobnob with the poor, and there are all sorts of surprising twists and turns. All of this led me to set the play in the 1930’s. That’s how the show got its "swing" too. The 30’s also worked for the tradesmen who are putting on a play for Theseus. Why would tradesmen put on a play for a powerful man? Answer: They can’t get work during the Great Depression.

Still there were problems. Duke Theseus tells Hermia at the beginning of the play that if she doesn’t marry Demetrius, she must die. That’s an important plot point, but how could I justify this? Obviously the Mayor of New York couldn’t make such a command. That is when the Mafia came into the picture. Surely a Mafia don would have the power Theseus and might make such a demand as a favor to Egeus.

Another question that I needed to answer for myself involved the spirits in the park—who were they? Shakespeare wrote them as magical fairy sprites named after herbs and insects. I knew I would want to pull from the nature and traditions found in New York’s physical earth. The logical choice came in the form of Native American spirits. These were the spirits of the land, and they were also based in nature.

This required extensive research in to the people of that land (the Lenape, commonly known as the Delaware), their spirit hierarchy, their dance and music traditions, and something of their clothing. After reading numerous books and contacting several Native American sources including the Lenape in Oklahoma, I felt confident enough to proceed.

To see some of the design concepts that came from these choices, go to www.a2ct.org and click on the Midsummer Night’s Dream show page.

Auditions and Workshops
Shakespeare would be proud at how popular he still is 500 years later. On all of the nights of auditions, we were swamped with people. It rapidly became evident that people weren’t going to be able to read as much as they would like. We did our best and heard over 60 people read for 24 parts.

The auditions themselves took place before Labor Day weekend to allow the cast time to do an intensive read-through of the script Act by Act and line by line. This is the kind of knowledge that the performers of Shakespeare need in order to communicate the play to others. Curt Waugh (producer) and I were walking down Huron Street and I said to him, "As long as we’re going through the play and talking about scansion, why don’t we invite the public to rehearsals?" On our first day of rehearsals, we invited the public to come in and learn a little bit about Shakespeare. We talked about scansion—the analysis of the rhythm of the poetry—for two days before Labor Day weekend. Then we read through the five acts of the play in the next five days of rehearsal. We discussed possible meanings, plot points, production concepts for scenes and just sat around enjoying this rich language. Oh, and we did have guests from the community at every rehearsal.

Rehearsals continue
We have begun blocking the show as of this writing, and we should have the show on it’s feet by September 27^th. It has been fun working with our swing choreographer, Ian Stines on the steps found in swing. The opening and the closing swing numbers should be very entertaining. Interesting as well, have been discussions with costumer, Joan Korastinsky, on how to best express the fantastic spirits. These spirits promise to be most impressive.

The Lovers (Lysander, Hermia, Helena, and Demetrius) are definitely on the raucous side. These rich swing kids run around in Central Park with their suitcases and their sweater vests, but during the course of the play, their costumes will become unrecognizably distressed with mud and grass stains, and rips. Their director is putting these actors through physical activity that would rival a World Wrestling match. The Spirits (Puck, Oberon, Titania, and their trains) have had a chance to work with rehearsal masks, and they have embraced the entire concept wholeheartedly. The Tradesmen are a motley crew of every different body shape and voice type. All of them boast a great instinct for comedy which will guide them through the funniest final act of Shakespeare. And as far as the Royalty go, you just have to hear how Shakespeare sounds when spoken with a New York Mafia accent.