Fairies, lovers unite for comedy

Madeline Welch, Opinion Editor

Crew members bustle around the stage for final preparations before the scene begins. Actors get in place and voices boom. Rehearsal has begun for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the fall production, which will show at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 31-Nov. 2.

Malcolm Taylor
THE RUSTICS. A group of sophomore actors, Juliet Di Teresa, Yannick Leuz, Brent Pennington and Sammy Fackenthal, rehearse for the fall play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The show will debut Oct. 31 in Sherry Lansing Theater and will run through Nov. 2.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a comedy written by William Shakespeare in 1595. There are four interconnected plots in the play, all set in the realm of Fairyland. The premise of the

play surrounds the marriage of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons. The narrative also follows the endeavors of four Athenian lovers and six amateur actors, all of whom are controlled by the fairies of the forest.

According to Eli Hinerfeld, who plays Oberon, king of the fairies, acting in Shakespearean English requires a completely different type of acting.

“Since many of the words are difficult to understand and long monologues often lose the attention span of the audience, it is important for us to channel the text through our movement,” Eli said. “We need to fully communicate the text through our bodies. This is something that will be difficult, but rewarding to achieve.”

Henrik Nielsen plays Demetrius, one of the four lovers.

“He’s kind of a self-confident jerk, which I’m excited for because it’s very unlike any role I’ve ever played,” Henrik said. “The show itself is going to be a lot of fun — we’re doing a lot of cool technical stuff along with a bunch of cool blocking and I’m very excited for it.”

The famous comedy, which usually takes just under three hours to complete, will be much shorter, so, in order to make the play more accessible to the student body, Lucijia Ambrosini made internal cuts. With so many students covering Shakespeare’s plays in English classes, this gives them the opportunity to see it beyond the page.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a widely performed Shakespeare play, so the theater crew is taking their own spin on the play by changing the original setting of a forest.

“Instead of being set in Athens, we are going to be on a tropical island,” Caroline Taylor, theater manager, costume master and one of five student directors, said.

“This means we are trying to keep the costumes light, flowy and natural.”

The crew will also craft a new curved set by making 18 individual pieces to achieve the earthy and organic look they are striving for.

Mrs. Ambrosini mentioned that there will be a heavy emphasis on the lighting, providing a unique, earthy atmosphere, as opposed to the darker, foresty surroundings in the original text.

Mrs. Ambrosini said, “the goal is to perform the best show possible, which you do through a combination of good rehearsal and having all of the tech features come together.”