It is difficult to think of
summers in Vancouver without Bard on the Beach, our annual Shakespeare
festival. Twenty-five years ago, Bard began its history in the city with a
modest single production of A Midsummer
Night’s Dream. Since then, the festival has grown bigger and, in most
cases, better. It seems entirely fitting, then, for Bard to celebrate its 25th
summer by revisiting this divine comedy yet again.
From the outset of the
performance, it seems clear that director Dean Paul Gibson and costume designer
Mara Gottler are aiming for maximum silliness and raunchiness in effect. Hermia
and Helena appear in tight-fitting corsets, and Puck dresses throughout in
ballet tutu, complete with punk hairdo. A friend remarked that this is a
reference to A Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Indeed, there are numerous pop culture references throughout the evening.
Laughs were milked by slapstick antics that became outdated even in Hollywood
decades ago with shows like I Love Lucy
and The Three Stooges. Moreover, the
production was saturated with sexual innuendoes and double entendre, which would have been acceptable, even funny, if they
are done with taste, with cleverness, and if they serve the play.
Rather than using
Shakespeare’s immortal and oh-so-beautiful words to elevate us from our
everyday existence, the production appears to be aiming at the lowest possible
common denominator. If the director thinks that dumbing-down Shakespeare would
make the play appeal to a younger audience, he has seriously underestimated
what young people are capable of.
Regarding the female
characters, I believe the director is aiming to portray these women with
assertiveness. However, Gibson seems to have mistaken assertiveness with
vulgarity. In the confrontation between Hermia and Helena in Act III, the
actors were shouting their lines like men and women in the fish market haggling
over the price of the latest catch. Shakespeare,
like Mozart in his operas, has always endowed his female characters with wit,
with cleverness, and with confidence. The concept of the current production
has, to me, robbed the female characters of their true beauty and, more
importantly, dignity.
This attempt to update this,
probably Shakespeare’s most timeless play, has robbed Midsummer Night’s Dream of all its magical elements. By the time
the performance reaches Act V, the play-within-the-play - the “tragedy” of
Thisby and Pyramus - feels very tedious with even further attempts at slapstick
humour more appropriate for a Christmas pantomime by an amateur theatrical company.
At the end of the performance,
I did not feel a sense of wonder, or of joy. I did wonder what, if any, is the
director’s concept for the production? Surely there is more to this great
Shakespeare play than just to elicit a few laughs from the audience? By the
time the performance reaches Puck’s beautiful final monologue, I could not wait
to escape into the beautiful summer evening.
Just a few days later, on the
same stage, I witnessed a production of Twelfth
Night, given by the young players of Bard on the Beach youth programme
(“Young Bard”). For me, the enthusiasm and earnestness of the young actors make
the performance a much more joyful and joy-filled experience than what the
professional players had accomplished a few nights before. Personally, this
performance of “unadulterated” Shakespeare is closer to what the playwright had
in mind.
In this 25th
anniversary season, Artistic Director Christopher Gaze should feel justifiably
proud of what the festival has accomplished. I do hope, however, that Gaze
would also carefully examine the future direction for the festival. Rather than
using Shakespeare to further whatever personal or political agenda of the
director, should they not be directing their talents toward bringing us, the audience,
into new and wondrous discoveries and insights into Shakespeare’s heart and
soul?
