I have seen "A Midsummer Night's Dream" more times than I can remember but each time brings something fresh. The New York Classic Theatre's production which I saw this year in Carl Schurtz Park on the far Upper East Side delights. The company does stellar productions of Shakespeare and occasionally other classics each summer in various parks around Manhattan and Brooklyn. The conceit is that we, the audience, must move with the action from spot to spot in the park. The most engaging aspect of this particular production are the "rude mechanicals" led by Nick Salamone's Peter Quince who are enlisted by Duke Theseus(the excellent Clay Storseth) to put on a production of "Pyramus and Thisbe," in particular Ian Gould who plays Bottom with enormous flair. Another device in this production which works to great effect is having the mechanicals double as Titania's creep steam punk fairies. But the highlight of the production was Montgomery Sutton as Francis Flute performing Thisbe with enormous, and I mean truly enormous, balloon breasts that prevented movement. I thought I would burst my appendix laughing. On the negative side, I could have done without the seemingly arbitrary passages of the play that were set to music and Matt Mundy's Puck was a bit ADD for my taste. But all in all a very pleasing evening with the Bard.
On the flip side, "Coriolanus" at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey on the Drew University campus was a disappointment. The production design, to begin with, was a mess, a mash up of everything from cheap Liberace suits to bathrobes with epaulettes standing in for military attire. What were they thinking? Well, I know what they were thinking because I stayed for the Q&A with actors. They seemed to think that this made the productions "timeless." Hmmmm... The acting overall was quite good although I detest the casting of women in men's roles unless that is the intention of the production as in Phyllida Law's recent all female productions of "Henry VI" and " The Taming of the Shrew". I find it distracting and it changes the tenor of the scenes. I must give a nod to Jacqueline Antaramian who was especially fine as Volumnia, the helicopter mother of Caius Martius Coriolanus. Greg Derelian is a very good actor but as Caius Martiuis he looked too much like a character out of the "The Sopranos" for me to take him seriously. Perhaps if the costumes had not been so ridiculous ....
"Privacy" by James Graham at the Public Theatre, is a bit of fluff about the invasion of privacy in the age of the internet, initially brought to our attention by the Edward Snowden who himself appears briefly on a screen at the end of the play. I think anyone who was shocked by the "revelations" in the play probably has not been following the news since Snowden became the most famous whistleblower in the world and most definitely has not see "Citizen Four" which shocked socks off anyone who saw it. No, the subject matter of this play not longer has the power to be shocking but, as directed by Josie Rourke with a cast that includes Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame, Rachel Dratch late of SNL and many many many Amazon boxes, it is charming and extremely good fun.
