Two Takes on Love, Dark and Fair: A Dream of a Dream, and an Old Dispute

A midsummer night’s dream
The festival of classics
the national post

Journeys do not generally end in lovers meeting. Shakespeare may once have said they did, for the sake of a rhyme, but his own comedies, and classic comedy in general, give him the lie. From old Athens to old Hollywood, a comic journey begins with lovers meeting. It then throws obstacles in their paths until the final fade-out, at which point it brings them back together and leaves them there, for better or worse. Usually it's for better, though there's always a cynical temptation to think otherwise. And there are some plays in which the author genuinely seems to be on the side of the cynics.

This week has brought two excellent productions of contrasting comic masterpieces, one fair and familiar, the other black and rare. The famous one is A Midsummer Night's Dream, which Miles Potter has directed for the Festival of Classics in Oakville in a production that goes far beyond being "good for an open-air show"; it's simply one of the best Shakespeares to come along in years. It isn't too easy to say why; Potter's work isn't critic-friendly, in the sense of supplying easily visible concepts for reviewers to chew over. This production is in modern dress, but there doesn't seem to be any agenda to that, beyond simple accessibility. But the overall impression is that the director approached his text and his actors with an open, alert mind and tried to get the best out of both. It works. Dialogue and characters spring into life, and make one another funny, with layers.

Even the story seems fresh.

It grips, in fact, right from the start. The Dream is an unusual case, in that its lovers have met, and are embroiled, before the play starts. Its fairy king and queen have been married for, presumably, eons; its mortal boys and girls are in an amorous tangle when we first meet them. The first scene is a quarrel, and it's especially well done here, as an escalating crash of juvenile egos, and one adult one; in the heavy-father role, Michael Spencer-Davis, a pillar of middle-class respectability relishing the prospect of his daughter's immolation should she defy his wishes, is the only Egeus of whom I have ever wished to see more. Shauna Black's Hermia must have been the prom queen at her Athenian high school; a virginal flirt, secure in her own prettiness, she brings her teddy bear along on her flight to the woods. Tova Smith's Helena, a bespectacled geek clutching an album of her adored Demetrius, painstakingly spells out every thought that occurs to her, and wallows unstoppably in every emotion. The young men, as usual, have less personality, but Darren Keay and Matthew MacFadzean make the most of what they are given; when, much later, they all awaken from their dream, MacFadzean's Demetrius gets the strangeness of the play better than almost anyone in the cast. The long four-sided quarrel in the forest is very carefully built, with the slapstick applied only at strategic moments. The progressive tearing and shedding of clothes is an especially riotous running gag and -- please don't misunderstand -- a revealing one.

The interplay within the Athenian amateur actors' group is equally rich, with Spencer-Davis doubling as a Peter Quince who comes to rehearsal equipped with a beret and a chair marked "director." He's plainly read all the books, and is very prompt with textual notes and vocal exercises. The latter are mainly aimed at Mark Lancaster's Flute, a bass who, cast as Thisbe, is very reluctant to force himself up into a soprano. He hates his role but, in one of the production's inspired touches, it takes possession of him; his dying speech is actually rather moving, capping a scene that up to then has been hilarious. Murray Furrow's Bottom takes direction less well, and stages at least one spectacular walkout. He is delightfully bumptious at his first appearance, disappointingly routine when hidden within his ass's head, but magical when he, too, has his awakening. The succeeding brief scene when he rejoins his friends is much the best, from all hands, that I have seen.

In a production notable for its humanity, the superhuman fare less well. J. D. Nicholsen, a Shakespearean debutant, makes a strong initial impression as Oberon but doesn't vary it much. He has the air and appearance of a laughing buccaneer, suggesting Captain Hook before his traumatic encounter with the crocodile. Indeed, there's a strong flavour of Peter Pan about this section of the play. Claire Jullien, a rather elocutionary Titania, arrives attended not just by a single changeling child but by a whole troop of Lost Boys and Girls, all apparently abducted from a fancy-dress party. They do not, as you might expect, turn up later as Peaseblossom, Cobweb &Co.; those roles are taken by the four largest of the mechanicals, which is a very neat effect. The prize of the fairy kingdom, though, is Deborah Hay's captivating Puck, a resentful show-off forever stealing up behind Oberon and failing to surprise him.

Whom does that leave? The court figures aren't too hot, with Jason Mitchell's Theseus played for one-note geniality and Jane Spence wasted as Hippolyta. There's an amusing transgendered treatment of major-domo Philostrate, who comes equipped with what can only be spelled as a Philophax. The ending is genuinely happy, for the audience as well as the cast. Nightfall does its accustomed work, but I think this show would be magical even at matinees.

A brand plucked from the annual bonfire of the Toronto Fringe: Kate Lynch, who herself directed a fine all- female Dream a few seasons ago, now stages an anti-Dream, in the shape of The Dispute, a once-neglected but recently reclaimed piece by the French 18th- century master Marivaux. It's also, and perhaps more significantly, an anti-Tempest.

Two young men and two young women, each one brought up in ignorance of anyone else's existence save that of a couple of guardians, are finally unleashed into the brave new world that has such people in it. Such people, that is, as one another and -- even more -- themselves; they have not, up till now, been allowed mirrors, either. The whole is a controlled experiment, conducted by a Prince and his mistress desirous to find out which sex is the more fickle. The result -- as A falls for B, who returns her ardour but is then attracted by C, who has had her own thing going with an equally susceptible D -- is pretty much a draw, though the ladies score higher on narcissism. This is brought out with especial deliciousness by Egle (Carly Street), patiently explaining her own beauty and her rival's ugliness to said rival, Adine (Robin Schisler), who feels the same in reverse. The two men (Geoffrey Pounsett and Brendan Murray) are at least prepared to be pals; or, as an uncredited but British- sounding translation has it, "mates." The four of them have childish emotions trapped in mature bodies, which is pretty much the predicament of Shakespeare's quartet, except that they grow out of it. Marivaux's point seems to be that we never do, though social conditioning may help us to disguise the fact. His geometric precision becomes, inevitably, predictable, but it's compelling anyway, because it's so witty and so persuasive.

Lynch's production has a light touch and a dark heart. The central foursome are admirably framed by Tim Campbell and Jayne Lewis as the courtly manipulators and by Camille James and Jeremiah Sparks as the keepers who, Egle charmingly says, don't count as attractive because they're so black. It all sounds good and looks terrific, with the amorous or jealous tussling delightfully choreographed. The group responsible, the Sweat Company, announce that their purpose is to match "powerful, challenging text" to "bold, expressive, physicality." I detest such manifestos but have to admit that, in this case, what is promised gets performed.