It was a high-energy, fast-paced performance, with the characters dressed in summer whites. There was some doubling up on characters, with the fairies readily distinguished by their sinuous movements. That mostly worked, although some of the fairies were more graceful than others. Puck was superbly cast.
However this wasn't, for me, as magical as some past Gorilla Rep productions. It didn't help that I'd slept very little the past few nights... or that I was lugging my mom's suitcase over the grass. But it also didn't help that a few of the actors, in some scenes, spoke so rapidly in accented English that they were completely unintelligible. They clearly knew all the words and their meaning (something that eludes even many native speakers of English), but unfortunately that kind of breathless, rapid-fire delivery style requires exceptionally clear pronunciation. I'm sure the speed of the delivery was intended to keep the show to a reasonable length... but I just wish they'd slowed some of those breathless speeches to boost audience comprehension.
Fortunately, the actors had a lot of fun with the play-within-a-play (their pleasure was contagious for the audience) and everything built up to a nice conclusion. And I was really glad to introduce my mom to a real live performance of Shakespeare-on-the-run, after all these years of evangelizing about it to anyone who will listen. I live for Shakespeare in the city parks each summer, and I especially love mixing Shakespeare with exercise as we, the audience, sprint from scene to scene in pursuit of the actors.
After the show, my mom and I caught a cab to my place and we got ready for the tough day ahead.
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