A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Broad Stage

A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Broad Stage
1310 11th Street Santa Monica

In their first collaboration since the internationally acclaimed War Horse, Bristol Old Vic's Artistic Director Tom Morris and Cape Town's Handspring Puppet Company reunite for an inventive new take on Shakespeare's romantic comedy. A Midsummer Night's Dream unfurls in the wooded ambiance of The Broad Stage, interweaving the lives of lovers, actors, foes and fairies. Played out on a starkly beautiful set with a brilliant young cast of actors and puppeteers, this is a Dream about love, transformation, survival and song.

Thru - Apr 19, 2014

Show Type: Drama

Box Office: 310-434-3200

www.thebroadstage.com

A Midsummer Night's Dream Reviews

Average Rating based on 9 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Los Angeles Times - Recommended

"...Nonetheless, this inventive production will send you home with a heightened sense of the dreamland surrounding us."

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- Charles McNulty

LA Weekly - Somewhat Recommended

"...Still, the production, by War Horse director Tom Morris, is surprisingly uninvolving. The main quartet of lovers and their foibles feel too separate from the puppet business, a big reason that the puppets' theatricality doesn't translate into emotional heft."

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- Zachary Pincus-Roth

Stage and Cinema - Recommended

"...They've covered the other issues by casting the best possible actors as people, and by the foresight of having as director Tom Morris, Tony Award-winner for co-directing the international hit War Horse (also in collaboration with Handspring). In his hands, this most complicated of plays is a unified delight. In this production, there are no perfect agents; when Puck mentions what fools these mortals be, he is on the way to screwing up most of his own errands. My attention wavered occasionally during the latter acts, but it's Shakespeare's fault more than the director's: this is a play with about nineteen endings. Each plot line wraps itself up at least twice, and then those characters come back for a complete act, plus, of falling action. But it's never looked so good as it does here, and my annoyance in every case was fleeting, replaced immediately by wonder and joy."

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- Jason Rohrer

The Hollywood Reporter - Somewhat Recommended

"...Their creations are invariably impressive in conception and execution, although they add paltry little magic, vision or suggestiveness to the text, drama or comedy. The feeble evisceration of Puck is particularly regrettable, and one can tell the stagers recognize that loss by excising his celebrated curtain speech."

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- Myron Meisel

Examiner - Recommended

"...Oh, you may have seen "A Midsummer Night's Dream" before, but you have never, ever seen it with this kind of sensibility. The tale of a quartet of lovers, warring fairy lords and bumbling laborers all mixed up in the same Athenian woods comes across fully intact, completely recognizable with a few creative liberties, but – to borrow and mangle a Puck-y phrase – lord, how cool these puppets be."

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- Evan Henerson

On Stage Los Angeles - Recommended

"...Renew your acquaintance with the story and then, make a promise to see Shakespeare done the way the Bard would have appreciated his story to be told. It is a gift. It's bold and new and exceedingly well done."

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- Michael Sheehan

Total Theater - Recommended

"...Director Tom Morris has obviously been given a free and generous hand here -– the budget for a show like this must have matched musical-comedy proportions. But he (and the Handspring puppeteers) have put the money to good use: the production is constantly inventive, packed with surprising touches, acrobatic virtuosity, moments of touching beauty and intimacy."

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- Willard Manus

KCRW - Recommended

"...If you're a lover of Shakespeare and stage magic don't miss this production. You've got two weeks to catch it."

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- Anthony Byrnes

Living Out Loud Los Angeles - Recommended

"...Be sure to catch this interpretation of Shakespeare's comedy that makes some very unexpected choices that will astound you and delight you. You'll likely not have seen a take on Bottom such as the one this production brings to the stage with a very memorable performance by Miltos Yorolemou."

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- Sabina Ibarra

A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Broad Stage