Modernized Version of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at Great Lakes Theater Leaves You Wanting to Wake Up

If you were to listen to a recording of the current show at Great Lakes Theater, titled A Midsummer Night's Dream, and you had never seen or listened to it before, you'd wonder what the big deal was about Shakespeare. You might think, why does everyone think old Will was such a great writer when the material you heard was only intermittently amusing, written in modern contemporary English with some old-fashioned stilted language stuck on like a plastic handlebar moustache.

That's because Shakespeare's classic comedy gem has been translated (and ultimately transfigured) by Jeff Whitty (he wrote the book for Avenue Q), in partnership with the nonprofit group Play On Shakespeare. Evidently, the whining of people who "can't understand Shakespeare" has birthed a cottage industry which seeks to unravel Mr. S's complex and often confounding sentence structure.

That is a noble effort in the abstract, but the result in this case feels like Shakespeare extruded through the old TV shows "Jackass" and "HeeHaw." The original MND is a great story told in poetry while this version jettisons verse in favor of current word clusters such as "He's a player." and "What a makeover!" Those modern colloquialisms and references exist uneasily with patches of retained original verse; it's like throwing a bowl full of marshmallows into a zesty, meaty stew.

As directed by Sara Bruner, Whitty's often flat and bland (but understandable!) language is accompanied by non-stop physical humor and slapstick, as if they're trying to keep the attention of a roomful of four-year-olds. There's also lots of one character pointing at another, so we tots don't get confused about who the speaker is referring to.

Allow me to interject at this point that there is plenty of laughter generated in this new Dream. Genuine, hearty belly laughs. But they aren't laughing at the gentle (and sometimes not-so-gentle) wit of Shakespeare and his verbal constructions which, while daunting at times, can also please the mind and soul. They're laughing at actors beating each other with colorful pool noodles as they climb and romp on the jungle gym set and adopt various funny character voices, some borrowed from SNL, to squeeze just one more easy cackle from the patrons.

The basic MND story is there, under all the nursery school excess, with Lysander (Benjamin Michael Hall) and Demetrius (Domonique Champion) vying for the love of Helena (Royer Bokus) and Hermia (Ángela Utrera). Their romances are complicated by King of the Fairies Oberon (Derek Garza, doubling as Theseus), who sic’s his chief fairy Puck on the soon-to-be-pranked lovers.

As Puck, Joe Wegner adopts many mannerisms of Michael Keaton in the "Beetlejuice" film franchise, just one of the many samplings of other characters and shows that are mixed into this fast-paced (and understandable!) exercise. In that regard, Nick Steen as Bottom and Jeffrey C. Hawkins as Quince also stand out.

The scenic design by Courtney O'Neill is a slight elaboration of her design for Into the Woods, which is running in repertory. Plants made of pool noodles and the overlarge Christmas ornaments hung on the poles feel like crib decorations, continuing the production's inadvertent theme of infantilization.

Is the whole idea of modernizing Shakespeare by dumbing it down a good idea? We will withhold judgement until more examples are seen. But if someone thinks chess is too complicated, that's fine. Play checkers. But don't use the name chess and just simplify it so all the pieces only move one square in any direction. Some of us like a challenge, whether in a game or in language, and find it rewarding.

Indeed, local theater companies such as the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival and the Ohio Shakespeare Festival regularly mount those old comedies as written (if somewhat shortened) with such style and verve the audiences laugh with no problems at all.

By the way, in "Beetlejuice" you have to say his name twice to make him appear. And by the end of this MND adaptation, I was whispering "Shakespeare, Shakespeare" to myself. But no such luck.

Midsummer Night's Dream (a modern language adaptation)
Through October 27 at Great Lakes Theater, Hanna Theatre, Playhouse Square, 2067 E. 14th Street, 216-241-6000, greatlakestheater.org .

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