(Left to right) Mandy Olsen as Helena, Jared Zeus as Lysander and Erin Lynlee Partin as Hermia in A MIDWINTER NIGHT'S DREAM. Photo © Gerry Goodstein.

The New Jersey Shakespeare Festival has continued its recent tradition of presenting nontraditional holiday treats, and it is getting better at it every year.

This year, after past nostalgic turns ranging from the Dylan Thomas-inspired "A Child's Christmas in Wales" to last year's surprisingly successful "The Fantasticks," the company has finally gotten around to integrating Shakespeare and Santa with a lovely, lively and utterly hilarious adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," frosted up a little for the holidays and presented as "A Midwinter Night's Dream."

Adapted by director Joe Discher and NJSF artistic director Bonnie J. Monte, this irresistible romp doesn't really stray that much further from the original text than many Shakespeare productions you can find. Reportedly, less than 100 of the play's more than 2,100 lines have been changed to accommodate the changing seasons. Meanwhile, the fairies dwell in a winter wonderland of brilliant white and soft blue, with flurries, snowballs and slippery hills in abundance.

The artistic staff, including set designer Charles T. Wittreich, lighting designer Bill Berner and costume designer Frank Champa, have meshed seamlessly. Berner has reproduced the elegant blue glow you get from those lovely Christmas candle lights that look so nice in windows on Christmas Eve, and it blends perfectly with the silvery-satin and white fairy costumes. Mortals, bundled up in heavy coats, boots, hats and mufflers, stand in dramatic colorful contrast to the icy glare of the forest and its playful residents.

All this beauty, however, is merely window dressing for an enormously appealing cast taking you through a story that serves as the perfect ending for the festival's 2002 theme of grand magic. Christmas has always been a time where mortals experience magic, and what better place to do so than in Shakespeare's mystical forest?

Lovers Hermia and Lysander, defying Hermia's father's dictates to marry Demetrius, escape to the woods, with Demetrius in hot pursuit. Demetrius, meanwhile, is being passionately pursued by Hermia's friend, Helena. Oberon, the king of the fairies, attempts to assist Helena by sending his impish aide, Puck, to cast a love spell on Demetrius with a magical flower (in this adaptation, naturally, the flower is a winter rose).

As you may know, however, mistaken identities and other circumstances meddle with fate, with both Lysander and Demetrius falling madly in love with Helena, while Titania, queen of the fairies, falls hard for a pompous actor who is turned into an ass by Puck.

Puck, played by Greg Jackson (the mime in last year's holiday production of "The Fantasticks"), best embodies the spirit of the new season, sliding into scenes like Brian Boitano. Festival favorite James Michael Reilly is the other obvious comic foil, playing Nick Bottom, a would-be thespian who can't understand why he's grown hooves and floppy ears, much less why Titania (portrayed with appropriate regal elegance by "Cosby Show" alumna Sabrina LeBeauf) suddenly finds him irresistible.

All the young lovers are likeable enough, but one stood out like Rudolph's red nose. Erin Lynlee Partin (impressive in a small role in last year's production of "The Crucible"), pulls out all the stops as Hermia, who boils over with comedic passion when Helena ends up being wooed in stereo while she is cast aside like wet winter boots. The pint-sized Hermia is accused of being a mere acorn, but Partin's career is growing like a mighty oak at the NJSF. Just watching her eyes dance as she looks over this fickle group with scorn was worth the price of admission.

But, as an ensemble piece, it's probably more important to point out that there really wasn't a weak link in the bunch, including the group of rustic actors who perform their quasi-tragedy "Pyramus and Thisbe" for the lovers with such ineptness that the laughter from their "audience" went well beyond acting. Naturally, the "actor" named Snout (take a bow and a Dristan, Jay Leibowitz) is given a doozy of a winter cold, which figures prominently in the anticlimax.

How ironic, and how delightful, that the festival has managed to warm so many hearts by turning summer into winter. Then again, it is the season of miracles, is it not?

It's a Midwinter Night's Dream at Shakespeare Fest
By ALLEN CROSSETT, Drama Critic
December 12, 2002

From the spellbinding opening image to the swirling snowflake-filled conclusion, Joe Discher's production of A Midwinter Night's Dream is enchanting. This is Shakespeare's most beloved comedy turned on its axis, but only part of the magic is due to the change of seasons.

At the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival in Madison, Discher worked with artistic director Bonnie J. Monte to create a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream that would be especially appropriate for the entire family during this time of year. The adaptation also enrichs The Grand Magic theme of this, the Festival's 40th season.

So in this "winterized" version we have some language and imagery changes (less than a hundred lines were altered), what was originally a sword fight becomes a battle with snowballs, and Titania's fairies are renamed Sugarplum, Snowpea, Frostbite and Flake. Discher points out in his program notes that this is not a play about summer; rather, it is a play about the passionate madness that so often accompanies love. What makes the comedy so much fun is not the season but that "the course of true love never did run smooth."

Shakespeare used the moon as a unifying visual element, and a moon image is present in every scene of this production. In the opening moment, however, against a backdrop of sparkling ice blue trees and piles of snow heaped left and right and rows of icicles across the top of the stage, a character appears holding a snow globe, and what an inspired metaphor he offers.

Just as the presentation of the tragedy of "Pyramus and Thisbe" by Bottom and his "rude mechanicals" can be seen as a play within the play, so do the objects within the globe become themselves a world within a world. And during the performance, that snow globe gets passed from character to character.

The real magic of this production is not just in concept, however. What makes this season finale special is the excellent work of so many of the performers. The "mechanicals" appear dressed in winter coats or heavy sweaters and scarves,some with hats with floppy earflaps, and while they may look like a bunch of hicks just off a farm in Iowa, they are incredibly funny.

Led by John FitzGibbon as Peter Quince, the ensemble includes festival favorite James Michael Reilly in the role of Nick Bottom, David Foubert as Flute, Jay Leibowitz as the sneezing Snout, James Earley as Snug, and Larry Swansen as the more reticent Robin Straveling. Among Joe Discher's many strengths is his mastery of low comedy, and this blundering group of would-be players employs just about every pratfall and comic business in the book.

The lovers are also well played, and their scenes together, which often involve some very lively arguments, are among the production's many highlights. Erin Lynlee Partin portrays the spirited Hermia, with Mandy Olsen as the lovesick Helena, Jared Zeus as the ardent Lysander, and Geoff Wilson as the jealous Demetrius.

Sabrina LeBeauf, who is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Sondra Huxtable, the oldest daughter on television's The Cosby Show, brings to this ensemble the very regal character of Titania, the queen of the fairies. In the role of Oberon, the fairy king, is Mark Elliot Wilson. Especially pleasing is Greg Jackson as the mischievous Puck, who darts and slides about with impressive dexterity.

If this production has a weakness, it is that the low comedy that is so welcome from the characters of Quince and his rustic friends has a tendency to work its way into the behaviors of those of higher social class. Discher, as director, has a gift for creating comedy, and his work will be even stronger when that seemingly irrepressible talent is tempered.

Never before has the world seen A Midwinter Night's Dream. This unique presentation by The Shakespeare Festival is a very special holiday treat.

'A Midwinter Night's Dream' "Courageous and outrageous. But it works!"
Stuart Duncan - Excerpted from Packet Publications, TimeOFF
12/11/2002

The New Jersey Shakespeare Festival offers what may be the first adaptation of the Bard to insist on a change of season.

We have become accustomed to plays of Shakespeare being uprooted in time and moved centuries ahead. A Rutgers production of The Taming of the Shrew was set in post-World War II Italy. Recent presentations have switched localities to such sites as a Brazilian rain forest (Macbeth), a Lexington Avenue subway stop (As You Like It), and even a Japanese computer factory (again, As You Like It).

But the current staging of A Midwinter Night's Dream at the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival may be the first to insist on a change of season. Director Joe Discher has set his vision of Dream firmly in mid-winter amid snow, icicles, mufflers and sleds. In a season dedicated to "The Grand Magic," it is both courageous and outrageous. But it works.

Purists may object because liberties have indeed been taken with the text. Thus, "Tomorrow night, when Phoebe doth behold her silver image in the wat'ry glass, decking with liquid the bladed grass" has been changed to "Tomorrow night, when Phoebe doth behold her silver image in the icy glass, decking with frosty pearl the frozen grass."

And thus "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk-roses and with eglantine," from Oberon's famous speech, now reads "I know a bank where the winter windsighs, where hellebore, the Christmas rose grows nigh, quite o'er-canopied with hanging beads of ice, where sprites sweet dreams with music do entice."

You will remember that this particular dream comes in three parts -- Oberon, his queen, Titania, and her fairy band; the lovers and their tangled passions; and the rude "mechanicals," the laborers of Athens, bursting with bumptious good will...It is the "mechanicals," led by Festival veteran James Michael Reilly, who give this Dream its smiles and nudges. Mr. Reilly covers comedy from standup to slapstick, with all the stops in between. He gets plenty of help from John FitzGibbon, David Foubert, Jay Leibowitz, James Earley and Larry Swansen -- especially Mr. Foubert.

Charles Wittreich Jr.'s set design is indeed a winter wonderland (and a few characters cannot resist a snowball toss or two) and the evening is beautifully lit by Bill Berner and accentuated by Frank Champa's costuming.

But it is Mr. Discher we must thank for permitting us to share his vision.

'Dream' Production Proves Bard Playwright for all Seasons
By Sheila Abrams Today in Hunterdon

About to face an audience that had to wade through frozen, grimy three-day old snow on the Drew University campus to get to their theater seats, the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival might have had some trepidation. Would people with images of snowplows and sanding trucks dancing in their heads find the stage's snowy landscape enchanting?

The answer on opening night Dec. 7 was a resounding yes. Reality was banished in a glittering instant as a cleverly-conceived opening scene transported audience members into a snow-swept, frost-dusted, moonlit dreamscape. Thus began "A Midwinter Night's Dream," a bright, literate adaptation of Shakespeare's most popular comedy. With very minor and seamless changes in the original text - fewer than 100 changes were made in a total of 2100 lines - the familiar story took on a new and fresh look.

As in the original, the Athenian royals are preparing for their wedding and Egeus is still trying to force his unwilling daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius. Hermia loves Lysander and her friend Helena loves Demetrius. None of that has changed.

But when they enter the forest, it's a wintery fairyland, sprites dressed in sparkling white, the ground frosted. Snowflakes swirl. Are they freezing when they lie down on the ground? Obviously not. This, after all, is a dream.

Director Joe Discher, who also adapted the script in collaboration with Bonnie J. Monte, uses the device of a snow globe to convey the notion that the world on stage is self-contained and not subject to the inconveniences of reality. What a clever device!

Not that Discher fails to use winter's inconveniences when he needs them. While Sabrina LeBeauf, who plays Titania, moves with the fairlylike grace of a dancer, several of the mortals slip and slide convincingly on the stage surface. In fact, the presumed icy surface was used to great comic effect during the scene in Act Two when the four lovers face off in a mixed up battle.

The scene, featuring Erin Lynlee Partin as Hermia, Mandy Olsen as Helena, Jared Zeus as Lysander and Geoff Wilson as Demetrius, is a joy of both physical and verbal comedy, done as well as we have ever seen it.

But, funny as it was, that scene was only prelude to the comic high point, the presentation of the play within the play, the story of Pyramus and Thisbe. Always hilarious, in this production the scene provoked a kind of laughter we have never heard at a Shakespearean play.

Led with unflaggingly manic determination by James Michael Reilly, a festival veteran who strutted his comic stuff this summer in the production of Menander's "The Grouch," the group of rustic artisans could have come straight from Monty Python. Men dressed as women, pratfalls, double entendres and the like produced a wackiness that brought some audience members to tears of laughter.

While all the rustics were superb, along with Reilly, we must single out David Foubert, as Thisbe and Jay Leibowitz as Wall, for their especially funny performances. Mark Elliot Wilson was handsome and authoritative as both Oberon and Theseus, and Greg Jackson gave the mischievous the appropriate touch of wickedness.

Charles T. Wittreich Jr. designed the beautiful set, Frank Champa, the costumes, and Bill Berner the lighting.

"A Midwinter Night's Dream" is a marvelous, fresh choice for a family holiday entertainment. Once again it proves Shakespeare a playwright for all seasons. It has beauty, poetry, romance and humor, and will be running at the F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre Tuesdays through Sundays, through Dec. 29. Tickets are $22 to $41. Call the box office at 973-408-5600.

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