The Metropolitan Theatre Guild’s production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream has brazenly gone where the rest of local theater has never gone before—fashioning the Bard’s most whimsical comedy into an arresting tapestry bathed in neon, camp, and of course, good old giddy fun.
Updating Shakespeare’s plays into “visionary” efforts is a du jour preoccupation among artists. Baz Luhrmann’s breakout film Romeo + Juliet, for instance, showcased the beloved tragedy so surreally that it gave the Aussie major acclaim pre-Moulin Rouge. The Met has followed suit, fashioning Shakespeare’s timeless study of the foibles and follies of love into a madcap, absinthe-fueled mother of all farces directed by the acclaimed Ricardo Abad and with production design by National Artist Design Salvador Bernal.
Midsummer, for the uninitiated and uninformed, is about the humorous travails entangling two Athenian couples. Lysander loves Hermia; and Hermia loves Lysander. Helena loves Demetrius, but Demetrius loves her not and instead fancies Hermia. Demetrius is favored by Hermia’s father, Egeus, who even seeks punitive actions from Theseus, duke of Athens. After impossibly un-romantic options and utterances of lines like “The course of true love never did run smooth…,” Lysander and Hermia elope through the forest. Helena and Demetrius, in a zany tag race with the former dogging the latter, also steal into the forest.
Unbeknownst to the four are the spirits in the woods—a whole community of fairies, sprites, and nymphs, led by the feuding Titania and Oberon.
Therein rolls the magic, with fairies scheming to reward unrequited love, punish haughty youths and create a once-in-a-lifetime reverie for the four Athenian youths.
Inebriated and dazzling
Midsummer’s genius lies in the hodge-podge of creative ideas it was born from. As the premiere production of the Met, it underwent months of brainstorming and conceptualization. And the end product does not frustrate. The comedy gets a welcome new twist here, on a sultry set coupled with the classic roll of Shakespeare’s English, a few nips and tucks here and there.
The cast is seventy per cent the reason the Met production is amazing. They more than do justice to Shakespeare in their own curious ways. Rich Cunanan and Mona Katigbak as Oberon/Theseus and Titania/Hippolyta throw their lines with such certainty and confidence that they seem born for their roles. The lovers, Joel Trinidad (Demetrius), Topper Fabregas (Lysander), Pheona Barranda (Hermia) and Charissa Litton (Helena), also shine, especially Trinidad, whose line-throwing rivals that of Cunanan, and Fabregas, whose child-like air provides perfect comic timing to his Lysander.
But it was Bottom’s ensemble which really steal the show. With their lines translated into the vernacular by the late National Artist Rolando Tinio, they provide the camp humor for the play. John Lapus’ bisaya-yakking Peter Quince will leave audiences tripping over themselves in mad laughter, as well as Joseph dela Cruz’s Bottom. But what will really make audiences double over is the Pyramus and Thisbe sequence, with Bottom as Pyramus and Flute (Tuqxz Rotaquio) as Thisbe with their outrageous deliveries of lines like, “Halika, pantaga… halika…” Perfectly contrasting with the regalness of the rest of the characters, they oft balance the moods and serve as the tangible link between the audience and the play.
What the rest of the cast achieve in fine acting, sadly, isn’t the case with its much publicized “star,” Mylene Dizon, who plays an androgynous, giggly Puck. She just isn’t charmingly or mischievous enough. All she does effectively is swoop up and down the stage courtesy of Aussie stunt company ShowTech, the team behind the acclaimed flying stunts in the Matrix trilogy.
Besides the aforementioned actors as well as some of the today’s showbiz up-and-comers, some of local theater’s brightest luminaries appear on Midsummer. Miguel Vasquez and Epi Quizon alternate with Dizon as Puck, Paolo Fabregas and Miren Alvarez alternate as Theseus/Oberon and Hippolyta/Titania, Monica Llamas, Sheila Valderrama and PJ Rebudilla all alternate as the Athenian lovers.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as intoxicating as it is, is an appropriate allegory for the country today. We are as fractured a people as the world of Titania and Oberon when they lash out toward each other by the haunting moonlight. Reconciliation of opposites, the fact that life, as world peace goes too, never does run smooth—these are just some of the few inopportune realities we must deal with, and are mirrored by the drunk genius hell of a play that is Will Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The Metropolitan Theatre Guild’s production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is ongoing at the Carlos P. Romulo Theatre of the RCBC Plaza, corner Ayala Avenue and Buendia Avenue, Makati City. The play runs until September 24 this year, on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 9pm, Sundays at 3pm and 7 pm. For details and ticket prices, visit www.themet.ph or call 436-2778.
