A Midsummer Night's Dream at Atwater Village Theatre

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Atwater Village Theatre
3269 Casitas Ave Atwater Village

Open Fist Theatre Company presents a provocative new production of A Midsummer Night's Dream set in the Antebellum South. Intrigued by the Mechanicals' line "That would hang us every mother's son," director James Fowler has moved the action from Athens, Greece to Athens, Georgia circa 1855. There, with Shakespeare's text unchanged, we enter a world where the magic of an enslaved people plays out in the lives of those to whom they remain invisible.

Presented by Open Fist Theatre Company

Thru - Aug 13, 2022

Fridays: 8:00pm

Saturdays: 8:00pm

Sundays: 7:00pm

Show Type: Comedy

Box Office: 323-644-1929

www.openfist.org

A Midsummer Night's Dream Reviews

Average Rating based on 8 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Broadway World - Somewhat Recommended

"...In the end, however, setting this in a time of slavery is an odd choice for director/choreographer James Fowler. When the story wraps up, it does so with a soberness that resounds, but it's too little too late because the 99.9% of the time prior to that, it's just distracting to see "happy" slaves. It was a little too Song of the South for far too long to wrap it up so quickly with a dose of reality. It leaves a sweet-and-sour taste in the mouth that lingers more than the capricious lightheartedness that precedes it can balance to have the most power. It's chilling, but coming out of nowhere, it doesn't have resonance that is the intent. It ends up just seeming like a conceit."

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- Harker Jones

LA Splash - Highly Recommended

"...Move over, Shakespeare. Open Fist has just tweaked your centuries-old tale and brought it up-to-date – sort of. Open Fist’s interpretation of MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM takes place in 1855 (just before the Civil War). Instead of Athens, Greece, the action is set in Athens, Georgia – as Deep South as Shakespeare ever went. It’s a complete redesign of Shakespeare’s classic play – and it works! Serenaded by “Old Black Joe” and other favorites of the time, MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM becomes a clever adaptation of fairies/cum Black slaves – both invisible to the eye of the Southern White plantation owners of the day."

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- Elaine Mura

Stage Scene LA - Highly Recommended

"...Director James Fowler and Open Fist Theatre Company discover astonishing new depth and meaning in a centuries-old classic by transposing William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream from ancient Greece to the Antebellum South."

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- Steven Stanley

On Stage Los Angeles - Highly Recommended

"...It's a gorgeous production. I have questions that I'd like answers to and may come back to later. Fowler has created a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream that is extraordinary."

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- Sheehan

Night Tinted Glasses - Highly Recommended

"...Indeed, one reason we still do Shakespeare's comedies so much more often than many comedies of his peers lies in this. He knows the stuff of all comedy is also the stuff of tragedy (and vice versa). This is literally a play where a father threatens to have his own daughter killed for falling in love after all. And the free will of at least one character is ripped away, pretty much forever."

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- Zahir Blue

Stage Raw - Highly Recommended

"...From Bertone’s laconic drawl to Curry’s mellifluous diction to Saunders’s lilting country tones, the varied Southern accents of all the cast meld nicely with Shakespeare’s’ prose and poetry. And Fowler effectively uses Black church and street vibes to infuse his characters with colloquial depth. Choreographer Faith Knapp’s prologue, with the Black spiritual accompanying it, sets the appropriate tone with White and Black characters foreshadowing the power struggle to come. Jan Munroe’s set design, with a plantation parlor on one side, a slave shack on the other, and cotton plants upstage, is emblematic of the era’s racial power dynamics, while Gavan Wyrick’s lighting design, such as the deep blue mini lights draped all over the stage, augments the play’s dreamlike ambiance."

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- Martin Hernandez

Theatre Notes - Highly Recommended

"...duction of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream? Director/choreographer James Fowler has a new twist on the venerable old show. Forget about Queen Elizabeth’s court and other iterations of the old play. We still will be in Athens, but it is the antebellum Athens of the American deep South, replete with white plantation owners and slaves who toil in the field or serve in the big house."

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- Paul Myrvold

Glamgical - Highly Recommended

"...It's the eve of the Civil War in the Black Belt and the cotton plantation is bursting with activity. That's the scenario where Fowler's reinterpretation of A Midsummer Night's Dream takes place. The Antebellum South becomes the mystic forest where a group of slaves are the fairies and mechanicals, able to love, bewitch, and dream."

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- Glamour

A Midsummer Night's Dream at Atwater Village Theatre