“While changing little of the text, director Peter G. Andersen transforms several of the key relationships, shaking up the power dynamics and exploring complex layers in a play written more than 400 years ago,” writes Emily McClanathan.
Aaron Latterell and Sonia Goldberg in"A Midsummer Night’s Dream" by Oak Park Festival Theatre.
At the helm of this production is Peter G. Andersen, the theater’s artistic director, who makes some fascinating choices around gender and sexuality that I’ve not seen in any other “Midsummer.” While changing little of the text, Andersen transforms several of the key relationships, shaking up the power dynamics and exploring complex layers in a play written more than 400 years ago.
Andersen has cast the lovers as queer couples — Hermia and Lysander are both played by women, and Demetrius and Helena by men. Their pronouns remain as they appear in the text , which slightly undermines the casting choices, but it’s easy enough to follow once your ears adjust to the language. The heartache of forbidden romance — expressed in Lysander’s famous line, “The course of true love never did run smooth” — takes on more depth in this scenario.
By giving Titania the upper hand, this production’s double casting of the Athenians and fairies is more satisfying. Andersen follows the common practice of having the actors who play Oberon and Titania also play Theseus, the Duke of Athens who dooms Hermia to an unwanted marriage, and his fiancée, Queen Hippolyta of the Amazons.
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