My first time at Villanova Theater and it was GREAT!…read more
I was so excited to see half-price tickets to 'Nova's theater on Philly Funsavers! I was also thrilled to see "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for Nov because it is traditionally played in spring or summer. Grabbed a very well priced ticket, and took myself out for a mom escape night.
I called ahead about parking, and was politely helped so I knew where I could and could not park (which is a PiTA on any college campus).
A quick walk up to Vasey Hall (the theater's current home), and a lit marquee shows you where to enter (the side facing 30).
Their lobby is standard, with professional ticket box. Ushers greet you with a program. Theater is black box style, with seating on 3 sides of the stage.
I was SO impressed with the quality of acting! I wasn't sure what I'd get from a college performance, but this was major cool! I've been to other local college theater productions, and I am impressed every time. As good as local community theater (and our community theaters hire talent from all over).
Shakespeare is often performed in themes, time periods, etc. to drive home a classic point with double meaning in the new context, clever duplicity, which the Bard is known for himself. It also shows the relativity of any given play's drama currency to a time or theme, because Shakespeare is always relevant (which is why he is everpopular).
The director of this production did an almost all-female cast. Only three characters were male. The females playing male parts were super well done with costume, expression, mannerism, and voice. They exaggerated the machismo a bit, and a bit of chauvinism came through to me, which was so ironic because female actresses cultivated this rendition of the play. I have seen/read this play a ZILLION times, and never noticed this stance could be lifted from the text. When the Athenians are reveling at the wedding dinner, the only female who speaks is Hippolyta, and briefly. This was underscored in the 'Nova production by making the women all sit at their man's feet. This scene is always done to show the Athenian audience's thoughts on the amateur play (a reference to Shakespeare's own awareness of his audience, as well as a reference to the drama that unfolded the night before in the woods, when these lovers themselves were "fools these mortals" to the fairy kingdom, who played them silly). But this director's choice to dress Theseus like a tacky craps player, and raise the volume on the men's brouhaha manner of heckling the wedding play, was further evidence of machismo superiority, which I have never before seen emphasized as such in other productions (all of which did their own unique take on the play). This is what I love about Shakespeare! Additionally, this director took the Titania-Bottom scene allll the way there, per the references in prose. Never saw that either. Oh la la! So funny! Oh, and I can't be sure, but when Bottom gets turned into an ass, I think his hat was meant to look like a MAGA one. LMFAO!
It was also interesting that the director had Bottom be a woman when a human character (normally assumed to be a male), and when she turns into an ass, she becomes a man (with a MAGA hat). Again, more innuendo, which the Bard would love, especially because this almost-all-female cast was doing the very same thing across the rest of the play.
Note that in Elizabethan times, only males were allowed to act, so all the female roles were done in drag. 'Nova's reverse gender bender is yet another layer of twist, totally characteristic of the Bard's canon.
I am an avid Shakespeare fan, and I thoroughly enjoyed this performance! No one can replace Christian Bale for my Demetrius, nor Lloyd for Puck (Evan Matthew Cohen in a "Malcolm in the Middle" episode), but the 'Nova cast did a hella great job just the same! I can't wait to go back to see more from Villanova Theater!
Look up the famous quotes from "A Midsummer Night's Dream," you will find familiar lines you hear often in pop culture... and they're over 420 years old! Shakespeare was the man!
