The Toronto Theatre Review: Dream in High Park

By Ross

On my third attempt, I finally got my Dream. Lucky for me, it was the sweetest, most beautiful night when I ventured out to see Canadian Stage‘s 40th-anniversary production of Shakespeare’s charming play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, played out under the stars in Toronto’s High Park. The first two tries were greeted with thunderstorms and rain, but the third time was the charm when I finally was able to cop-a-squat on the grassy graded lawn (bring a pillow, I keep forgetting) and take in The Dream in High Park shining its playful and funny twinkling lights for me and my friend.

It’s a tightly played-out version, shortened to a more kid-friendly 90 minutes, and delivered out to the crowd loud and vividly in order to delight and entertain. It certainly does entertain, and as directed with wild high jinks in mind by Jamie Robinson (Tarragon’s Copy That), this Dream leans heavily on the comedy, rather than the romance, giving us pleasure and laughs at every chaotic run in and out, sometimes at the slight detriment of the sweet undercurrent of charm that this cleverly constructed play sometimes can illicit.

We sort of all know the classic tale, about lovers running amuck in the woods with love potions distributed freely by a jealous King and a wayward fairy named Puck into the eyes of sleeping lovers, and one Queen. Orchestrated with glee in mind under the stars, this Dream mugs and jests strong against a very colorful, sometimes overly trash-bagged backdrop, designed by Jackie Chau (Factory’s The Waltz), who also did the costumes. With warm lighting by Logan Raju Cracknell (Howland’s Prodigal) and a clever musical tone and sound design by composer Richard Feren (CS’s Public Enemy), the play begins with some banjo, but really starts to unwrap itself on the night before the wedding of the Duke Theseus and the Queen Hippolyta, portrayed playfully by Shelly Anthony (Driftwood’s Othello) and Louisa Zhu (Factory’s Lady Sunrise) respectfully. But before they can retire, the Duke must intervene in the marriage matching of a few young Athenians who are finding paternal friction in their romance.

Hermia played energetically and with a big solid singing voice by Jadyn Nasato (Theatre@York’s Everybody) finds herself madly and deeply in love with the handsome musical Lysander, played by an engaging Stuart Hefford (Guild Festival’s She Stoops to Conquer). No wonder, as he is quite the catch, even though, at her mother’s insistence, she is to wed the lovestruck Demetrius, played purposefully by Frank Chung (Grand’s The Wars), as arranged by her father. Hermia is threatened with lifelong chastity as a nun by the Duke if she doesn’t follow her father’s arrangement (Rude!, if you ask me). Rebelliously and with Lysander’s guidance, she runs off that same night, escaping into the forest to meet up with the suitcase-rolling Lysander in hopes of capturing their true love’s dream outside of the Duke’s realm.

She excitedly details their plan to her best friend, Helena, played big and a bit too loud by Megan Legesse (Buddies’ The First Stone), who pines with her whole body and soul for the young Demetrius, the young suitor that Hermia is trying so desperately to escape from. Beyond any reason or bond of friendship, Helena forms a plan to thwart Hermia and Lysander’s runaway union by informing Demetrius of this forest rendevous, knowing full well he won’t be able to resist trying to find the two lovers in the woods and put a stop to it. And Helena will follow. Definitely not quietly, into the woods. If only Sondheim were on hand. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard on the ears.

They are not the only ones in the forest that night. Hilariously, a group of overblown actors gather, namely:  Peter Quince (Ryan G. Hinds), and fellow players Nick Bottom (Aaron Willis), Francis Flute (Vincent LeBlanc-Beaudoin), Robin Starveling (Angel Lo), and Snug (Julie Tepperman), in order to rehearse a play for the royal wedding. (Tom Snout is nowhere to be found in this High Park production). Regardless, it’s a magnificently playful and ridiculous group, and with more silliness than one can imagine, they engage with each other, the text, and the audience, ad-libbing and expanding the framework to their loving heart’s content.

Also layered within, paralleling the upcoming royal nuptials, the King of the fairies, Oberon, also played by double-dutied Anthony, struggles and fights with his much-loved Queen, Titania, also played royally by Zhu, to find union and consensus over the custody of a changeling child that is getting in between the two of them. Magical plots are brewed in the night, secretly, thanks to a particular flower and the agile inventiveness of Robin “Puck” Goodfellow, his “shrewd and knavish sprite“, played most delightfully by 郝邦宇 Steven Hao (Tarragon’s Cockroach) who after playing us a song on the banjo, falls asleep and misses the whole beginning of this story, most adorably. And with a great snore.

It’s all about the running around in the forest, trying hard and true to capture their deepest love desires. They meet. Slapping mosquitos away and trying to avoid the rain (a sound effect, thankfully, and not the real thing). They nap and do battle, falling into alternate magically induced infatuations and manifestations of not-so-true love and desire. It’s all pretty chaotic and created to be pure fun, yet in this Dream, it’s all played out a little too loudly, messy, and somewhere beyond passionate or charming. It’s definitely brought to life by a hysterical and rambunctious cast, giving it their all. But I did miss the more emotionally engaging qualities that exist somewhere underneath all the posing, the screaming, the running, and the yelling of lines at one another.

We know that after all the crosshaired, absurdist shenanigans, love and union will be found (even if one of the characters does marry someone he only loves because of a potion – but I digress), and that the donkey head will disappear leaving everyone happily ever after together, joined in marital bliss, ready to be entertained by the band of actors delivering a long-winded hilarious retelling of the ancient tale of “Pyramus and Thisbe“.

Navigating the numerous piles of garbage bags littering the cluttered stage, ready for falls and naps, the true stars of the playful night are most definitely the mechanicals, played by Ryan G. Hinds (Magnus Theatre’s We Will Rock You) as leader Peter Quince, Angel Lo (Terra Firma’s Insert Clown Here) as the wonderfully sweet Starvling, Julie Tepperman (Hogtown’s The Riot at Christie Pits) as lioness Snug, Vincent LeBlanc-Beaudoin (TFO’s Zik) as the wonderfully loving Flute, and Aaron Willis (Tarragon’s Well) as the forever overbearing (and utterly hilarious) Bottom. They snatch away the focal point of the night, taking the crowns from the loud and over-the-top lost lovers and the fairy royalty, and place it and our attention and admiration firmly on their scene-stealing heads. With heavily rewritten scenes, filled with ingeniously well-conveyed ad-libbed moments, the band of merry actors carry the piece up to the comedic heavens and deliver us happily into the night.

Generally, in more subtle and charming productions (like the one I saw in London’s Regent Park), I usually am ready to head home after the weddings have occurred, but, for the first time watching this summer Shakespearian classic, I was keenly aware that I was looking forward to the mechanicals getting their center stage act together one more time to tell their under-rehearsed play over and over again. It’s repetitious, but hilariously well-played by this crew of comedians, giving clever characterizations to their singularly paired parts.

The Dream 2023 in the delightful High Park Amphitheatre is a pure whimsical pleasure, played out, maybe more so this time around, for the young ones in the audience, rather than to the Shakespeare aficionados – not that I think of myself as one, but I do like to lean into the text more than the physical hijinks. Especially the four actors who are the lovers lost in the woods. Those four, as directed by Robinson, find their performance coming out from the physical comedy first and foremost, loudly and with manic energy and posing. The text, in their chaotic running and shouting, somehow got tossed in the rubbish bin, or left for Puck to sweep up at the end.

But the kids around me were thrilled, and the crowd roared their approval, especially for the group of mechanicals that delivered foolishness with a firm grasp of what is basically at the core of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Show-stopping as I’m sure those characters only dream about, that band of merriment gave me a Dream I was surprised by. So I thank them for their standout hilarity, and for the heavens to have not opened up and poured rain down on my High Park parade like they did the first two times I tried to see The Dream in High Park. For that, I am truly thankful.

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Canadian Stage’s 40th anniversary celebration of Dream in High Park runs only until September 3, 2023. Tickets for A Midsummer Night’s Dream can be purchased here.