A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Will Act for Food, at WNEP Theater and Short Shakespeare! “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Shakespeare’s craziest comedy can take a directorial licking and keep on ticking, as both of these productions prove.
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Will Act for Food director Daniel Shea reimagines the play as a Twilight Zone episode, with Micah Bernier as Rod Serling as Puck–darkly ruminating through clouds of cigarette smoke about “what fools these mortals be” and “how quick bright things come to confusion”–and a set by Robb Rabito that references the spinning hypnotic wheel from the TV show’s opening credits. The performers tend to jump each other’s lines, emphasize the wrong parts of the verses, and emote with uniform intensity throughout, and every appearance of Bernier’s chain-smoking Puck burns a black hole in the narrative. Fortunately, Shea’s light, lyrical staging remains true to the play’s poetry and comedy, sustaining enough of its spirit to redeem the production (besides, these good people are helping to feed the hungry and will accept nonperishable food items as partial payment for admission).
