From the Director

Dear Friends,

Welcome to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

What new is there to say about this beloved play? Well, we have set the story you are about to see in modern-day New York City. Shakespeare follows a tradition of many classical writers that set his characters in two places: the court and the country. The court and its business represents the law and hierarchy of society. While the country offers a respite from the tension of the court, its treachery and at times its danger.

This would be the case in this play. Hermia along with her friends flee the court to preserve her life. Bottom retreats to the wood to rehearse a play for the Duke with his fellow cast mates, lest they be spied on in town. The fairy world is at war in the wood where both have come and unwittingly they enter a zone of danger and deception which they thought they had left behind. They are now subject to forces and events outside of their own control. I wonder if they are able to be part of these events because of unmet desires and dreams yet to be realized.

I would suggest that Shakespeare reveals to us in the wood (Central Park in our case) that we take with ourselves all that we are and all that we may become. It is in the test of danger, the hope of a dream, the chance to be an ass and revel in that state that there is new courage to face what we have fled.

It is a simple analogy, but a profound one.

Puck watching the floundering of those under Oberon’s magic in the wood has this to say,

“Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

Enjoy the show,