Even in the inner sanctum of an Athenian wood, the sea is never far. In Hoboken, it is often close enough to fill one’s eyes and mind. In choosing to set his production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” on the edge of the Hudson River in Frank Sinatra Park, Mile Square Theatre Artistic Director Chris O’Connor had no choice but to fully embrace the ocean’s capacity for chaos, to make it the source of all mischief that befalls the play’s mortal lovers.
When the impish employees of Oberon and Titania, lord and lady of the fairyland, appear in O’Connor’s “Dream,” they first and foremost hail the sea. “I wish I could actually have them enter from the water,” said O’Connor, “but I don’t think my actors would appreciate that.”
Instead, he settles for turning the woodland nymphs of the play into nautical naiads, physical manifestations of the ocean’s power to transform, for better or worse.
The lessons should not be lost on Hobokenites. When Titania observes that her quarrels with Oberon “have every pelting river made so proud that they have overborne their continents,” survivors of Sandy will know of which she speaks.
Greasers and bobby-soxers
Water is just one of the ways O’Connor ties his production firmly to its immediate surroundings. Like so many Shakespeare plays, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is so universal in its contours that it can be fit to almost any era or locale, and O’Connor tries to milk every metaphor he can out of holding the play in Hoboken.
While the fairies of Titania seem to come from beneath the waves of the Hudson, the amorous Athenian youths that form the play’s driving action are drawn straight from the world of 1950s Hoboken.
“I wish I could actually have them enter from the water.” – Chris O’Connor
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Of course, where “West Side Story” ends in tragedy, “Dream” floats on comedy. When a spell-bound Lysander seeks out Demetrius to eliminate his competition for the heart of Helena – “how fit a word is that vile name to perish on my sword!” – he whips out a switchblade, only to drag it through his hair, revealing it to be a comb.
Hermia and Helena, the ladies of the love rectangle, are reborn as infatuated bobby-soxers in poodle skirts and saddle shoes. Whether intended or not, the transformation serves to highlight the retrograde sexual politics shared by both medieval Athens and Eisenhower America, in which women are defined by the men they desire.
Luckily, Nicole Kang’s Hermia and Koryna Gesait’s Helena have the chops to show their characters’ pain and pathos while still drawing laughs. Gesait in particular has a gift for physical comedy, her limbs all akimbo as she chases, then flees, Demetrius, incredulous that his newfound love for her is real.
Rude mechanicals
Perhaps no characters in “Dream” are more perfect for 1950s Hoboken than the “rude mechanicals,” the group of laborers who put on the play within a play for the Duke of Athens and his cohort. Each could easily have stumbled out of longshoreman’s bar after a few too many rounds with the vague notion of becoming an actor.
Like Terry Malloy in “On the Waterfront,” whose monologue Nick Bottom recites early in the play, the craftsmen have dreams of transcending their plebeian state and becoming contenders for fame and fortune. Of course, they have no talent in their chosen art, but in their glorious failure to produce a tragedy on stage, the crew provide the largest belly laughs of the night by far.
Hoboken resident Matthew Lawler steals the show as Bottom, the weaver who is turned into a donkey and spends the night with the fairy queen. Lawler perfectly captures the mixture of self-confidence and stupidity that has defined American sitcom stars from Cliff Claven to Homer Simpson.
Plays for young lovers
O’Connor’s most conspicuous choice in setting “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Hoboken is demanding that his mortal characters speak with thick Jersey accents.
“When you use a dialect…you put on this vocal mask,” explained O’Connor, “and it helps you create a character.”
(Ironically, O’Connor forgoes the most famous mask in the play, giving Bottom only ears and hooves instead of a full asshead when he is transformed, one of the production’s few missteps.)
O’Connor credits the accents for “making us hear the play in a very fresh way,” but one suspects he just as much enjoyed making his Jersey-fied Lysander chew through lines like “Out, tawny tartar, out!”
O’Connor said he brought back the Eisenhower-era “Dream,” first performed by Mile Square Theatre in 2007, in honor of Frank Sinatra’s 100th birthday, coming in December. Ol’ Blue Eyes’ songs feature throughout the play, and they are deployed expertly to complement and lighten the narrative.
After being turned into an ass and abandoned by his friends, Bottom comforts himself by singing a stanza from “My Way.” When Oberon’s manservant Puck finally gets all the Athenian lovers to fall asleep, ending their frolic in fairyland, the dulcet tones of “Put Your Dreams Away” play.
The songs do more than drive home the setting of this “Midsummer Night’s Dream” once again. They help to highlight the true force of nature at the core of the play – not the tides of the sea but the transformative power of love.
Both Sinatra and Shakespeare were hopeless romantics, and “Dream” is the bard’s purest expression of that sentiment. It may be triggered by the nectar of a forest flower, but love is a magic spell all its own, with the ability to turn enemies into friends, the ugly into the beautiful, and men into asses. The Chairman of the Board said it himself: “Fairy tales can come true. It can happen to you, if you’re young at heart.”
The Mile Square Theatre production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will be performed on July 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, and Aug. 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, and 9 at the amphitheatre in Frank Sinatra Park, located near Fourth Street and Sinatra Drive. All performances are free to the public and begin at 8 p.m.
Carlo Davis may be reached at cdavis@hudsonreporter.com.