You've read the reviews. Now read the book. THEATRE'S LEITER SIDE, 2012-2013 A Brief Memoir and Reviews
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| Caroline Amos, Alex J. Gould. All photos: Chad Batka. |
Hungry for a taste of the Bard that tickles your palate as
well as your ribs? May I suggest a visit to Café Fae, just below Union Square?
There, in a historic building that once served as the home and studio of
abstract expressionist painter Willem de Kooning,
a lively, charming, although not memorably spicy, production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
is being presented by Third Rail Projects and Food of Love in a cabaret
environment, supplemented by tidbits from a tasting menu.
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| Charles Osborne, Caroline Amos. |
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| Charles Osborne, Caroline Amos, Adrienne Paquin, Alex J. Gould, Joshua Gonzalz, Lauren F. Walker. |
You sit either at tiny, “candlelit” tables, each with four
bentwood chairs (not the ultimate in comfort over two hours and 10 minutes, with
one intermission), or at a raised dais running along one side of the room. The
play itself is enacted mainly in a narrow, central aisle, with the tables to
either side. Along that performance spine stand a series of classical white
pillars around which director Zach Morris cleverly manipulates his company. (Jason
Simms is the designer.) Sightline problems are never fully resolved but the constant
movement of the show’s eight actors means they rarely last too long.
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| Ryan Wuestewald. |
Yes, that's eight actors, each of whom plays more than one role—the
lovers, for example, also cover the rude mechanicals (as well as the faeries)—in
Morris and Victoria Rae Sook’s modestly adapted but generally faithful version of
Shakespeare’s delightful paean to the vagaries and confusions of love, both immature
and mature. (Sook, by the way, also plays Titania and Hippolyta.) Given the
food provided, one might paraphrase Puck by saying, “the course(s) of true love
actually do run smooth.”
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| Ryan Wuestewald, Victoria Rae Sook. |
Tyler M. Holland’s costume scheme dresses all but Theseus/Oberon
(Ryan Wuestewald) and Titania/Hippolyta in tight, tan pants, high boots, white
shirts, and suspenders, with occasional differentiations indicated by coats or jackets of
one sort or another. The mechanicals are distinguished principally by their workers’
smocks, Theseus/Oberon and Titania/Hippolyta wear garments modestly suggestive
of their royal or magical status, like the flimsy, white linens that set them
off in the forest scenes.
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| Charles Osborne, Alex J. Gould, Joshua Gonzalez, Caroline Amos, Adrienne Pasquin. |
Using imaginative, minimalist means, including jars with artificial
candles like those on the tables, or the simple floral headdress and mouthpiece
used to transform Bottom into an ass, Morris weaves his actors through the
confined space with precisely calibrated movements. Not a single line reading,
pause, or gesture has been overlooked, an approach surely necessitated by the cramped,
intimate quarters, but also one that reduces any spontaneity in the
performances.
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| Joshua Gonzalez. |
Still, the actors do well enough by their multiple
responsibilities to sustain your pleasure throughout. Everyone moves with grace
and clarity, suggesting considerable movement training. Dance sequences, one of
them extended, offer sweetly romantic diversions.
Caroline Amos (my adult granddaughter's favorite) is an adorable Hermia and Snug (the joiner),
her petite stature made more distinct by the lanky Adrienne Paquin as both
Peter Quince and the famously tall Helena. Alex J. Gould does nicely by
Lysander while also handling Flute, who gets to play the doomed heroine, Thisbe
in MND’s play-within-the-play.
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| Company of Midsummer: A Banquet. |
Joshua Gonzales is suitably innocuous as Demetrius and
Snout, while Lauren F. Walker
breaks multiple casting conventions to portray Puck. She also plays Philostrate
and, perhaps as a touch of irony, Starveling. Both Sook and Wuestewald are attractive
rulers of their domains, and Charles Osborne undertakes the secondary role of
Egeus and the lynchpin one of Bottom.
Bottom is a role in which many have tried but few succeeded,
not least of them James Cagney in the old Max Reinhardt film version which, however,
had in Mickey Rooney a Puck I’ve never seen equaled. In a production where the
company is competent but not exceptional, Osborne is the energetic standout. He
plays Egeus in a manful way but brings a questionably fey affect to his
otherwise capricious Bottom. Admittedly, he gets the majority of the laughs,
but he has to work extra hard for them. By
following a precisely set sequence of exaggerated comic shtick, he deflates the
humor that should arise naturally from Bottom’s naivete. At bottom, this character is no easy task.
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| Charles Osborne. |
Midsummer, despite several musical interpolations, only occasionally brings the actors into such
immediate, head-turning proximity, often in order for them to casually deposit
items of food (like a cloth napkin containing scrumptious cherries) on your
table. These have no immediate contextual purpose, but, like the small plates
of food waiting for you when you arrive (or the wine you may have purchased in
advance), add a soupcon of culinary enjoyment to your evening with the Bard.
Recent archaeological discoveries at Shakespeare’s Globe in
London have revealed what audiences at his plays indulged in. As Anne
Bramley has reported, they ate “cold nibbles and ready-made street food,”
including nuts, “grapes, figs, blackberries, raspberries and plums” Cold
chicken is also likely to have been digested, but, judging by the many shells
uncovered, the most common gustatory choice was oysters.
At Midsummer: A Banquet you won’t find any of these, but you’ll sample, as per the first items on the menu, such prettily arranged delicacies (food design by Emily Baltz) as “fresh
crudités, brie and beets, salumi, pickles, eggplant chickpea tahini spread, red
pepper romesco, butter with herb oil, breads.”
Perhaps 400 years from now, they’ll find our crumbs.
Café Fae
827 Broadway, NYC
Through September 7
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