During its best moments, this “Dream’’ feels as new, raw, and spontaneous as a burst of graffiti (a key scenic element in this production). Many of those best moments feature Robert Walsh, who turns in a hilarious performance as Bottom, the weaver, grandiloquent thespian, and occasional donkey.
Director Benjamin Evett has indicated that his intent was to plumb the dangerous and dark edges of “Dream,’’ but this production is not especially dangerous or dark. Nor does it always touch the deeper chords of “Dream.’’ Some of the play’s greatest speeches do not resonate as fully as they should; the beauty of the language is sometimes obscured.
Where the considerable strength of this production lies, however, is in the sheer kinetic energy of a cast that mines the play for every nugget of humor, and in the wit Evett demonstrates in bringing the play into the here and now without dumbing it down.
When Bottom, wishing to know whether the moon will provide illumination on the night that he and his fellow “rude mechanicals’’ perform before the Duke of Athens, instructs them to “look in the almanac; find out moonshine!’’ they promptly whip out their smart phones. When Hermia (Mara Sidmore) and Helena (Jennie Israel) get into an argument over who betrayed whom, it is staged as a street-corner throwdown, iambic pentameter-style. When Titania (Marianna Bassham), the Fairy Queen, recalls how a mortal child came into her custody, a TV set in a nearby trash can is suddenly illuminated with poignant images of the boy’s mother, looking haunted.
The sinuous story line of “Dream’’ winds around the romantic tribulations of four young Athenians. Fair Hermia loves Lysander (Shelley Bolman) and he loves her right back, but Hermia’s father forbids them to marry, demanding instead that she marry Demetrius (Christopher James Webb), or suffer the death decreed by Athenian law for such disobedience. Demetrius is eager to marry Hermia, but this is devastating to Hermia’s best friend, Helena, who loves Demetrius, yet is scorned by him.
