The Woodland Drama Club has had a nice break after the successful production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by theater teacher and playwright Susan Cinoman. The two showings of this classic play both produced a decently sized crowd for Woodland.
At first the cast thought it might be tricky to put on a Shakespeare play, due to the Shakespearean language which most of them were not familiar with. However, they accepted the challenge and looked up the meaning and pronunciation of words such as “visage”, “ay”, “beteem” and many more besides. The cast worked together to decipher the script and learn it, and they ended up doing a spectacular job.
The audience was amused by the foolish buffoon of a man called Nick Bottom, played by Robert Wiener, who was given a donkey’s head by an impish fairy who caused some of the other main characters to all fall in love with the wrong people, and enjoyed his mistake.
The audience watched as Puck the “shrewd and knavish sprite” gleefully caused the couple Hermia (Mary Fitzgerald) and Lysander (Charles Bethin) to break up when Lysander randomly fell in love with Helena (Catherine Pelkey), when she already loved Demetrius (Lily Fontaine) who Hermia’s mother had just betrothed to Hermia against her and Lysander’s will. The relationships in this play are more complicated than even High School relationship drama.
“What I found unique about the show was that it was more than one story put together into one play, “ said cast member Michael Marti. “You have the story of the lovers, and the story of the fairies, all intertwined with one another in such a creative way,” added Marti.
In Shakespeare’s time, when this play was first performed at his company’s theater, the Globe, there were no female actors, and so Hermia and Helena were played by boys with wigs. Now Woodland has done the opposite, for a lack of actors and an abundance of good actresses, and cast several girls as men, such as Lily Fontaine who played Demetrius.
Although this play presented a challenge for the cast, they enjoyed it immensely and had a great time working together as usual.
Marti, who played Egeus, Hermia’s father, also said, “It was a challenge, of course it was…When trying to memorize Shakespeare, it’s difficult because there is such a gap between the language of the time when the plays were written, and present day.” Fitzgerald, said that the Shakespearean language was not too much of a challenge because the lines rhyme, which certainly made monologues easier to memorize.
“My favorite parts about performing this play were the beautiful costumes, and making memories with the old and new drama members,” said Fitzgerald.
Marti also commented that one of his favorite things about the show were the costumes. These “beautiful costumes” (Fitzgerald) were mostly hand made by cast member Katie Steinbacher and her mother Karen Steinbacher. The cast mutually agreed that these were the best costumes they have seen yet at Woodland and send much thanks to these beautiful people, and also to Carey Fitzgerald and Joanna Pelky, other “drama mamas” for their help in advertising this production.
Some members of the audience commented on how well the cast spoke the tough language, like it was natural to them, and kept the action going by moving through their lines quickly enough and speeding up their entrances and exits.
All in all, this play was exciting and unique, although this was not the first time it has been done at Woodland. Scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream were performed by the Advanced Acting class at the Woodland Fine Arts Night in 2010, but this was the first time the whole play was done.
Now, out with the old and in with the quasi-new. The spring musical to be directed by music teacher Sean Lewis this year will be Little Shop of Horrors, which was performed several years ago at Woodland, but which will no doubt rock the house again. Auditions are next week, January 16th and Thursday January 17th after school. Aspiring actors and actresses should come to the auditorium and prepare a song.
