The play follows a ragtag band of performers, forest fairies, and soon-to-be-married royalty in a story of romance, humor, magic, and dreams. Love simultaneously brings happiness and wreaks havoc on the characters’ lives, especially when love potions create complex love triangles.
Because Hernia’s father would rather have her executed than let her marry Lysander, the couple plans to elope, leaving a heartbroken Demetrius and an unwanted Helena. Natalie Uy, who plays Helena, pities her character, saying that Helena “just wants to be loved but heartbreak has, in many ways, made her delusional and desperate.” This is especially apparent in the scene where Helena “think[s] the others are making fun of [her] while Demetrius and Lysander are under a love potion.” Returning the four of them to normal allows them to follow their own hearts with the memory of the chaos when they were under a spell guiding them to the best possible decisions.
Because the Shakespearean play can feel difficult to understand due to the complex language and plot, director Paytin Gibson had “to make sure, when telling the story…that the acting could also tell the story that way if you didn’t understand what they were saying and so you understood what was happening by seeing what they were doing.”
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a comedy, and the play’s humor is timeless; insults like “You acorn!” had the audience cracking up at the absurdity of the line while Dorian Carrillo Ferrer’s impromptu ad libs added to the hilarity. Uy said that “hearing the audience laugh was more than enough encouragement on both show nights.”
For the performers, this rapid show cycle brought them additional challenges with “a lot shorter time than they’re usually allotted” to memorize their more complicated lines filled with their complex Shakespearean lines. Yet in the end, Cypress Theatre’s hard work paid off and they felt incredibly proud of what they made.
After another successful play, Cypress Theatre urges everyone to attend Frozen the Musical, their next production in April.
