A Tiny Outdoor ‘Midsummer’s Night Dream’

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Photo by A.J. Magoon

Summit Players' ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’

Summit Players' ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’

Shakespearian friends and rivals make powerfully comic appearances on various outdoor stages this summer as The SummitPlayers presents its latest: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The touring production makes its way to various Wisconsin State Parks through the end of July. Light backdrops and minimal costuming flits about the magic of outdoor spaces as directed by local theater veteran Maureen Kilmurry. Whimsical energy flits its way through a brief and energetic comedy of love and mischief. 

The fairy kingdom feels powerful enough. The crude mechanicals hold-up their end of the comedy as well. The ensemble is particularly strong, however, with respect to the Athenians. Both the endearing friendship and the comic conflict between Hermia and Helena reside quite comfortably at the heart of the play in irresistible performances featuring the towering Maya Danks as Helena and the diminutive Sarah Zapiain as Hermia. Danks’ emotional gravitas plays well against Zapian’s playful comic instincts in an especially endearing corner of the ensemble. 

Zapian and Danks play a number of other roles as well. (Zapian manages a group of five total characters while Danks plays four.) A cast of six quite comfortably performs a pleasantly abbreviated version of the original script. The ensemble manages to keep the energy quite dynamic even towards the end of the play while there are more characters than actors onstage. Kilmurry locks-in a sense of fun that mixes catchy harmony with fun bites of physical comedy and a charmingly weird chaos that all slide together into an enjoyably bizarre fugue for late outdoor afternoons in the midst of another hot and humid Wisconsin summer. 

The Summit Players’ production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream tours public parks in Wisconsin through July 29. For more information and a complete list of dates and locations, visit  summitplayerstheatre.com/shows. Admission to the performances is free.