2006 SEASON    

DIRECTOR'S NOTES

A Midsummer Night's Dream
By William Shakespeare
June 21 to July 16th, 2006

Directed by David Ferry

To view one of the pictures below in a larger size, click on the picture.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most familiar plays. It is probably his most produced one. Most outdoor Shakespeare festivals produce it early on in their history and Resurgence started its life seven years ago with a production of Dream.

My starting point for this production was the question "Whose dream?" and an observation that the jealous fight that causes the upheaval in the world of the play is one between Oberon and Titania over a "changeling child".

I have decided to make the dream, the dream of a young boy who is uncertain about the
love of his parents (if they are fighting over him, like most kids he thinks it must be his
fault). In this dream world things take on extreme proportions, and the "adults" behave outrageously.

I have deliberately taken a look at the Fairy world that has a stronger and angrier magic than the traditional ‘fairies at the bottom of the garden’ variety, and the mechanicals led by Bottom are not as slapstick as is often shown .. these guys are true lovers of the theatre, so what if they are not sophisticated, they do their play for the Duke out of a real sincerity, for as the Duke remarks:

I will hear that play;
For never anything can be amiss,
When simpleness and duty tender it.

The lovers are a bit self-centered and spoiled, but their love in the end is real too .. it takes a very strong potion to unlock the pent up (and strongly sexual) emotions that drives them, but they offer a hugely entertaining opportunity for skilled actors to attack their scenes with a physical relish that I hope you will find entertaining.

In your watching this production "if we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended".. that we too offer up our production with "simpleness and duty."

David Ferry, Director

Photographs: (top to bottom of the page)
Lisa Codrington as Aunty Robyn and Robert Dunsmore-Van Wart as Will
Stuart Wiber as Tom Snout, Robert Dunsmore-Van Wart, Changeling Child, Don Allison as Starveling, Brendan Gall as Francis Flute, Art Hindle as Nick Bottom, Alon Nashman as Peter Quince, Chris Sas as Snug the Joiner
Maev Beaty as Helena, Christopher Morris as Lysander, Irene Poole as Hermia, Tim Campbell as Demetrius
Photographer: Greg King

2006 SEASON