Kent James says:

Further thoughts exchanged with a friend and a critic who did not enjoy the Chamber Dream.

*********

The piece mostly works for me, where it completely, or almost completely fails for you. (Teaching you what you never want to see again doesn’t qualify as any measure of success ;)) Friend 2 says “Worst Shakespeare I’ve ever seen”, you paraphrased that almost exactly, with some qualifications.

You asked me why I liked it:

– I find what the play is exploring interesting – to me, perhaps not to others (infidelity, saying one thing and meaning another, anger, jealousy, all in the context of couples, and sometimes in the context of the couples in AMND – A Midsummer Night’s Dream as it’s generally presented).

– I find the mode of exploration interesting (taking chunks of the text and giving them new context and meaning in a piece that is stripped down to a series interactions, some specific (Bottom with his head in Titania’s lap, the presentation of Pyramus & Thisbe, Helena’s protestation against Lysander, Demetrius, and Hermia, the casting discussions with Peter Quince, Titania and Oberon arguing over the Indian child), some vague (D talking to Helena while grasping at Hermia, random scratching on the walls, frequent chasing and grimacing and agonizing), between two couples on a stage with no props and lighting and sound.

– I am ok that the piece may not tell a coherent story, a complete story, or maybe a story at all – I enjoy the chunks of AMND that are used for what they are in the new setting, without feeling a sense of loss over what they are not. When we discussed the comparison to Jazz variations on a theme, you talked about serving the song – I’m ok if it doesn’t serve the original song as long as what it is lands with me in some way. Although I also like when it serves the song, and hate when it tries to serve the song and fails miserably, so if that were what you thought happened I’d totally understand. And at the end, everybody forms a circle and says “Oh, let’s just go home”. Just like Follies.

– I like that the piece is relentlessly dark and intense, because AMND, like many of the comedies, can be quite glib about things that need not be laughing matters (for instance, to use the Ne Me Quitte Pas lines that Helena brings to mind, the “laisse-moi devenir l’ombre de ton ombre, l’ombre de ta main, l’ombre de ton chien” – “Don’t make me disappear completely – let me stay even as the shadow of your shadow, the shadow of your hand, the shadow of your dog” attitude that Helena takes toward D, which is always played for laughs.)

– I was really touched by parts of it. I thought the attempts at communication between the couples were beautiful and true (Sorry about ____, but I will wed you in a different key, am I less fair than I was last night, go sleep on the couch), even when they didn’t land (which is, um, almost always), and I loved the ultimate reconciliations. Some of that stuff can be nicely handled in AMND, but generally it gets a very broad treatment.

– I liked the trance-like atmosphere of the whole piece, the lighting and sound. I didn’t like the really loud screamy parts too much, because they complicated the decoding of what was going on, which is already hard enough given the complicated language and absence of cues.

– I was not put off by the intensity and anger and angst as you were. Not sure why – will need to think about that. As we discussed, sometimes self-indulgent anger can kill an otherwise thoughtful piece of work for me – so maybe I didn’t find it self-indulgent.

Anyway, there you have some more complete thoughts on why I liked it.

Kent James says:

May 22, 2015 at 3:41 am

It’s a fair bit of work (especially from the back row).

It demands an excellent understanding of the play from which it takes its text – it doesn’t really stand on its own. Without that understanding the play has no context. With that understanding it’s extremely rich.

We loved it, and have talked about it and thought about it a lot in the 24 hours since we saw it. The reconciliation scenes between Theseus and H, and Oberon and Titania, are tremendously moving. And in the only light moment in the play, the scene between Bottom and Titania is lovely.

And the cast is brilliant and committed, dedicating themselves to delivering a vision that is complex, and could be completely blown up by the slightest insecurity.

Overall it’s angsty not funny, claustrophobic not expansive, intense not light, serious not joyful. It’s a bit of a Midsummer Nightmare.

Nestruck’s review, and Gloria’s comment below, capture a lot of how the play made me feel.

Someone like Dan, who went expecting to see his beloved Midsummer Night’s Dream, is bound to be disappointed. The tickets really shouldn’t be sold without having the patrons sign a waiver. We had 2 walkouts, and a lot of muttering.

Dan Coo says:

May 22, 2015 at 3:41 am

Saw this before official opening.
What you will not see: Beloved comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream. You will hear most of the text, spoken very well, sometimes whispered (because this production is inexplicably mic’d).
You will not see actors portraying recognizable characters, or differentiating between the multiple characters that each actor plays. You will see four actors in a gray box reciting lines to one another, but the words will not correspond to their interactions. Those interactions are predominately romantic overtures, moments of consoling, or yelling.
I stayed till the end but don’t be surprised if you find yourself joining those who walk out. Not recommended

Gloria Friedman says:

May 22, 2015 at 3:41 am

Well, I had a totally different reaction. It made me think about the play in a whole new way and certainly made me think about the themes of the play. It made me think and it made me feel and I experienced moments of pain and truth. It’s definitely not the Dream we have come to expect but it did for me what theatre is supposed to do. I plan on seeing it at least once more. The four actors were absolutely extraordinary,

Grant Campbell says:

May 22, 2015 at 3:41 am

More than anything else, the production reminded me of an old movie I saw back in graduate school: The Company of Wolves, with Angela Lansbury and David Warner. Like that movie, the play feels as if it’s taking place in the tempestuous erotic dream of an adolescent: perhaps I made that connection because of Sellars’s production notes, which state that the play belongs in adolescence, which provides an appropriate context for the cruelty as well as the vitality of the dialogue and plot. On the one hand, the emotions and gestures are slightly hysterical, even in lines that don’t necessarily lend themselves to that treatment: it’s the first time I’ve heard “Here, Peter Quince” uttered as if it were “Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life and thou no breath at all?” Oddly enough, I found that touching, in the same way I find poignancy in an adolescent’s tortured musings on a Twitter posting or a fashion choice. I remember when the least little thing brought out a torrent of angst.

Visually, the production puzzled me, but the dialogue was set free by the treatment, and the gorgeous lines lifted off the stage and out into the audience: the amplification made it possible for the cast to whisper the lines in an intimate way when needed.

Kudos to an excellent cast:: they cram a full day’s work into 1 hour and 45 minutes.

The New York Times - Charles Isherwood

Both beyond Shakespeare’s wildest...

Charles Isherwood of the NY Times on the Chamber play “I emerged stunned and disoriented, partly stimulated and partly exhausted. Theater rarely makes you feel any of these things consistently, let alone simultaneously.” and this of the other “Mr. Abraham’s production ranks among the most purely enchanting I’ve seen”

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The National Post - Robert Cushman

Certainly striking, also monotonous

“If you are among the learned, you can enjoy watching each of the actors seamlessly switching from one character to another; if you aren’t, you won’t even know who those characters are. Let me be clear: Sellars is a director worth inviting (and, I hope, re-inviting) to Stratford, and this production is worth seeing. But it’s a one-note treatment of a rich symphonic work and thus, for all its surface solemnity, a frivolous one.”

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The Bard and the Boards - Robyn Godfrey

Boredom, then frustration, and...

“It would have been more interesting to read this version of the play, not witness its desiccation. I do not use that word lightly – for all of Mr. Sellars’ enlightened intentions to get at the heart of the play, he only reveals – relentlessly so – the dark, lustful, anguished side of the play’s core emotion, love.”

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The Slotkin Letter - Lynn Slotkin

A radical rethinking

“Many will fall on their knees in lemming-like slavish supplication to the iconoclastic efforts of Peter Sellars, thinking this is the most incredible interpretation of the play they have ever seen. Others will think it’s a load of pretentious crap. Me, I hated it.”

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The Globe and Mail - J. Kelly Nestruck

The company is feeling like an...

“It is fiercely intelligent, emotionally restorative, allows one Stratford Festival actor [Dion Johnstone] to do the best work of his career – and introduces another actor [Sarah Afful] who could be the theatre company’s next big star.”

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The Record - Robert Reid

Minimalist Midsummer has all the...

“Under Sellars’ challenging direction, the cast resembles a quartet of inmates performing an abridged version of Shakespeare in a madhouse…Sellars refers the ensemble to “a quartet of voices,” but it is a quartet of voices in a single key—the key of lunacy without love and poetry, to paraphrase Theseus in one of the play’s most famous passages.”

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The Toronto Star - Richard Ouzounian

Four brave actors

Richard Ouzounian praises all 4 actors, Sarah Afful, Dion Johnstone, Trish Lindström and Mike Nadajewski adding “if you’d like to reach out to grasp the hand of William Shakespeare and feel the pulse of life beating there, then this is an absolute must-see piece of theatre.”

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