American Players Theatre's trippy 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' a gift to fans

By Mike Fischer, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

July 5, 2017

In his program notes for the American Players Theatre production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” – now playing in APT’s outdoor amphitheater in Spring Green – director John Langs stakes the claim that there’s no play better suited to this stage than “Midsummer.” 

You’ll likely agree after watching Langs’ smart and splendiferous “Midsummer.” It was the play that opened APT nearly 40 years ago; it was the play chosen to consecrate the new stage APT unveiled this year. Langs’ “Midsummer” looks back at what was while celebrating this play’s great theme: the transformations through which we continually change and grow.

Take Jonathan Smoots, who played Theseus in that first “Midsummer” in 1980 and does so here again in 2017. 

Dressed as a king for a classical production, Smoots was so much older, then.  He’s younger than that now, sporting a contemporary summer suit that’s accessorized with Grecian folds.  So yes: this is the man who rules classical Athens.  But he’s also a man for all seasons, revised for the times and true to APT’s mission of honoring the classics while making them new.  

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