A&E
BNT inaugurates KTSA Amphitheater
By Xenia Tiajoloff ’16
September 10, 2015
Rarely do people experience the resonance of coincidence in such a happy and playful manner as the lucky attendees of Hamilton’s annual Shakespeare in the Glen. This year’s enactment of A Midsummer Night’s Dream christened the Kevin and Karen Kennedy Center for Theatre and the Studio Arts’ amphitheater: a wondrously fitting location for a Shakespearean play that centers around Athenian society while portrayed as a comedy within a play.
With the pond as the backdrop—and occasional prop to battle ground tactics of jealous lovers— a pavilion of fairy lights, hanging flowers and the natural onset of twilight proved to be a perfect setting for theater’s favorite mischievous fairy, Puck (Bridget Lavin ’18), to spread a pinch of well- intentioned chaos.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream was directed by Caitlin McQuade ’18 and Allison Schuette ’16. A story of unrequited love, disobedience for freedom and troublesome power struggles, the directors guided the play into the 21st century by folding in gay marriage rights through rewriting Lysander as a female lead, played by Schuette. Playing opposite to her ever-impassioned Lysander was Ashley Jamison ’16 as the strong willed Hermia. The comedic foursome was rounded out by the bright verbal and slapstick comedy of the two indignant and stubborn lovers Demetrius and Helena (Charlie Wilson ’16 and Meghan Gehan ’18, respectively).
The humor in the execution of the comedy is a testament to the solid acting and understanding of absurdity by many great “supporting” actors — I write supporting in quotations because each character was too colorful and fully realized to be anything less than a character of equal weight. For who in attendance can forget the aggrandized pomp and confidence of Nick Bottom (Ryan Cassidy ’17), the stoner fay named Mustardseed and minstrel named Flute (Collin Purcell ’17) or the laughable image of Starveling (Isla Ng ’16) carrying around a lantern, a twig and a stuffed dog over her shoulder while maneuvering about Snout’s “Wall” (Sarah Hoover ’18)?
Overall, congratulations must be extended to the whole cast of students who arrived a day early this summer to prepare this farce. In less than three weeks, the performance was practiced, produced and presented at a very high level of refinement. It was a true declaration of the great talent that comes from our fellow students in an atmosphere which appropriately borders a formal and informal energy. To quote an anonymous couple that sat nearby me on Saturday night, “THAT was entertainment.”