American Players Theatre: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Allie Bugajski, Allie and the After Party

The Duality of Man (And Fae) at American Players

Ah, young summer love. No performance could be more fitting for an outdoor theater on a warm summer night than A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Underneath the sky turning pink and dusky, we enter into the world of Athenian lovers and woodland fairies.

The pairs of Athenian couples play off each other’s energies. Hermia and Lysander, played by Samantha Newcomb and Xavier Edward King, are in love and determined to be together. Helena and Demetrius, played by Maggie Cramer and Josh Krause, have a flair for the dramatic as Cramer bemoans her plight of unrequited love and Krause tries to shake off Helena’s advances. When the fairies’ interference switches everything up, both men turn into lovesick puppies while Cramer storms off in a fiery rage as she believes they’re playing a trick on her and Newcomb needs to be held back as her anger over being betrayed overtakes her.

Jim DeVita and Elizabeth Ledo as King Oberon and Queen Tatiana make a fierce pair like fire and ice. He wears warm, auburns and red colors while she’s dazzling in icy gray adorned with flowers and vines with white hair. He speaks in soft, warm tones and she in sharp jabs when angered.

Our troupe of actors hoping to make it big at the royal wedding add even more comedy with their antics. Sam Luis Massaro as Nick Bottom pauses for dramatic effect when he first enters with the head of a donkey, the large eyes of the costume’s head staring out over the audience. It takes truly talented actors to make us believe they are bad at acting. But when it comes time for their performance of “Pyramus and Thisbe,” they deliver their performance with the panache of a beginners improv troupe attempting to overcome their stage fright with halting voices and replaying scenes until they get it perfect.

But what really sets this production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream apart is casting the role of Puck as two actors. Played by both Joshua M. Castille and Casey Hoekstra, the two seem to have endless amounts of energy as they bound across the stage reveling in the night’s mischief. They race up and down the aisles running to do Oberon’s requests. They pull faces and literally bounce off one another as an inseparable pair we find ourselves looking forward to every time they're on stage.

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