I \ \ The Magazine for the Audience of The BAM Theater Company

The BAM Theater Company Audience Magazine for William Shakespeare's

''... And think no more of this night's accidents Than as the fierce vexation of a dream.?'

Contents------Editor's Note and Plot Summary 2 Its Infinite Variety 3 A Production History of A Midsummer Night's Dream A Touch of Imagination 8 David Jones talks about directing Shakespeare and A Midsummer Night's Dream A World of Enchantment 14 The lore of Fairies and Other Creatures of the Imagination Postscript 18 The BAM Theater Company's Inaug.ural Season

This audience magazine is made possible by a grant fro~ the New Y~rk Council. , for the Humanities. The BAM Theater Company produchon of A Mzdsummer Nzght s Dream is sponsored by Philip Morris Incorporated. The BAM Theater Company is produced by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11217

Opposite. Sheila Allen as T'itama and Gerry Bamman as Battom m the BAM Theater Company's production of A Midsummer Night s Dream. Photo by Ken Howard Front cover. Bottom and Titania by H. Fuseli. Editor's Note Roger Oliver

william Shakespeare was fascinated by the subject of love and its infinite manifestations. His I PLOT SUMMARY poetry and plays examine divergent facets of love and its consequences, from joyous to tragic. Few of Theseus, Duke of Athens, is about to .. Shakespeare's works, however, contain as many marry Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, variations on this theme as A Midsummer Night's whom he just defeated in battle. A group Dream, where everything ultimately converges on of workmen are preparing to present a love as the play's intellectual and emotional core. play, the "tragedy of Pyramus and The diversity of love to be seen in A Midsummer This be," at the wedding, and conduct their Night's Dream is remarkable. We begin with the rehearsals in the wood outside Athens. mature love of Theseus and Hippolyta. They are When Theseus forbids Hermia, a young contrasted with the young lovers, who must be Athenian woman, to marry Lysander, the sorted out before any commitment is possible. Yet, man she loves, and insists that she wed even here, Hermia knows she must defy her father Demetrius, her father's choice, Hermia rather than marry someone she does not love. The and Lysander escape into the wood. They workmen who are to perform for the Duke's wed­ are pursued by Demetrius and Helena, ding celebration present a glimpse of tragic love who is in love with him. with their enactment of the Pyramus and Thisbe The wood is inhabited by the fairies, story, even if it becomes a burlesque in their hands. whose king and queen, Oberon and Finally, Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the Titania, are quarelling. To punish Titania, Fairies, demonstrate love's power beyond human Oberon orders Puck to find a magic juice limitations, especially when their disagreement which, squeezed into the eyes of anyone releases passions that upset nature itself. sleeping, will make that person fall in love Clothed in some of Shakespeare's most shimmer­ with the first creature they see when they ing poetry, this exploration of love might suffice for wake up. many writers. Yet A Midsummer Night's Dream also Oberon orders Puck to sprinkle the juice asks us to consider imagination. Love, Shakespeare's on Demetrius's eyes, so that he will fall in subject, can be an act of the imagination, but so is love with Helena, but Puck instead the theater, Shakespeare's medium. We laugh with anoi~ts Lysander, and then Demetrius, so the mechanicals as actors and the lovers because they now vie for Helena instead of Her­ both groups fail to distinguish between what is real mia. Oberon himself uses the juice over and what seems to be real because of the exercise of Titania in revenge, so she will fall in love the imagination. And if as audience we are not sure with Bottom, whose head Puck has of the distinction at the end, perhaps we laugh at transformed into that of an ass. ourselves as well. With daybreak the lovers' confusions are The elaborate, realistic productions of A Midsum­ resolved and wedding plans are made. At mer N ight's Dream in the 19th century robbed their the wedding celebration Bottom and his audiences of the play's full power by limiting the au­ friends present Pyramus and Thisbe. The dience's exercise of its imagination. In a play that J play concludes with the fairies' blessing. utilizes imaginary creatures like fairies, the im­ aginative partnership between actors and audience becomes even more important. Modern productions have tried, in a variety of ways, to rediscover this partnership. The BAM Theater Company invites you Inside to share in our exploration of the world and the im­ INSIDE is published by the Office of Special agination that is A Midsummer Night's Dream. • \rograms o_f t~e BAM Theater Company Ed1tor and Prmc1pal Writer: Roger Oliver Assistant Editor: Stephen Schwartz Designed by Ellen Shapiro Graphic Design Inc. 2 © 1980 by the BAM Theater Company "Its Infinite Variet '' A look at t_he myriad-~nd ?ccasionally ludicrous- ways A Mtdsummer Ntght s Dream has been interpreted

O ne of the principal themes of A Midsummer eliminating the four lovers entirely and reducing Night's Dream is transformation, the change from the Oberon/Titania and court scenes so that Bottom one state into another. Few, if any, of Shakespeare's could be given precedence and the piece itself plays have undergone the transformations, both in could become a farce. the text itself and in production style and inter· Even when the theaters were reopened after the pretation, which this play has endured in the Restoration of Charles Il in 1660, the tradition of almost four hundred years of its history. presenting the play with cuts prevailed. Prompt Although it is impossible to give an exact date for books from the 1670s indicate the kind of cuts that the first performance of A Midsummer Night's were used. In one copy Titania and her fairies had Dream, the play was published in 1600 and had been eliminated entirely and the Theseus and Hip· been mentioned in print two years earlier. Scholars polyta and lovers' scenes were drastically shorten· have deduced from internal evidence and from its ed. For a production at Dublin's Smock Alley similarity in style to such works as Love's Labour's Theater more than one-fourth of the lines were cut, Lost and Romeo and juliet that it was probably writ­ with the speeches of the courtiers and the fairies ten around 1595-96. The theory has been advanced not only reduced but rewritten, so that the action that A Midsummer Night's Dream was written or at and the language could be simplified. least altered for an aristocratic Elizabethan wed­ Even with these changes, A Midsummer Night's ding. The play's emphasis on married love, the Dream found little popularity with Restoration blessing of marriage beds at the end and the kin­ readers, critics and audiences. This was true, in ship with the elaborate court spectacle known as fact, of all of Shakespeare's romantic comedies, as the masque are all forwarded as convincing reasons audiences preferred comedies of manners, satire for the wedding day theory. The title page of the and sentimental plays and the court wanted con­ 1600 quarto states that the play " hath been sundry temporary works. Only the farcical aspects of the times publicly acted by the Right Honorable, the play retained any popularity. Faced with this situa­ Lord Chamberlaine his Servants," indicating tion, if the play were to acheive any kind of suc­ subsequent public performances. cess, it would have to be presented in a new form. There is evidence, however, that the King's men That new form was discovered in 1692 when A acting company did perform the play in conjunc­ Midsummer Night's Dream became The Fairy Queen tion with a masque at King James's court during and found a huge public as an opera. the 1604 Christmas season, possibly in a more Perhaps the best description of The Fairy Queen elaborate production than the public theater one was made by contemporary British composer Sir which was probably still in the repertory after Michael Tippet, who called it "a set of five Shakespeare's death. In 1630 A Midsummer Night's unrelated masques or divertissements, interlarded Dream was performed at Hampton Court and in with a hotch-potch version of A Midsummer Night's 1631 a bishop created a scandal by having an Dream." Thomas Betterton, the producer of The amateur performance of the play in his rectory on a Fairy Queen, did not commission a setting of Sunday. Unfortunately we have no accounts of Shakespeare's lines from his composer, Henry what these performances were like, although the Purcell. Instead he cut the text in half and then two court productions may have been the occasion alternated spoken scenes from Shakespeare with of dividing the text, originally produced and elaborate operatic interludes accompanied by dane· published continuously, into separate acts so that ing and spectacular scenic effects. The Purcell mas­ musical interludes could be inserted. ques included many characters and figures not in With the closing of the theaters by the Puritans in the original, such as gods and goddesses, nymphs, 1642, the first real change in the text of A Midsum­ pastoral shepherds and shepherdesses and the per­ mer Night's Dream occurred. With no public per· sonification of the seasons. In the final act, the mar­ formances allowed, plays were adapted and con· riage was not followed by the Pyramus and Thisbe densed into short comic sketches called drolls play, which was performed in the wood in Act III, which were done privately. One of these, The but an elaborate finale which Oberon conjures up Merry Conceited Humours of Bottom the Weaver, with a Chinese garden, a chorus of Chinese and a used only one-third of Shakespeare's original, dance of six monkeys. 3 After a period when only the Pyramus and Thisbe section was performed in 1755, David Garrick presented a version of the play whtch ex­ cluded the rustles entirely and placed the emphasis on the characters who gave his version its name The Fames. Again music had a promment place, with many passages and scenes cut to make room for the 28 songs and the almost 200 lines (mostly to be sung) which were added. For example Puck sang Ariel's " Where the bee sucks. . . from The Tempest, while most long speeches and poetic passages from the original were cut. As L ne con­ temporary critic observed it was A M. Jsummer Nzght 's Dream minced and fricassed into an In­ digested and unconnected thing called Th e Fames. Garrick left a director s prompt-book for another production of the play one which would have been much more faithful to the origi nal but • he became ill and left England so that it was nt:>ver performed. As productions began to use a fuller (but by no means complete) text in the nineteenth century they also became more elaborate. When John Philip Kemble and Frederick Reynolds produced another operatic version of A M1dsummer Nights Dream at Covent Garden in 18 16, for example, they included a fairy ballet danced by 41 f "riec; who were in addition to the eight serving Or •ron and Titania Since this production placed Its em­ phasis on Theseus the play concluded with a great pageant commemorating his mythical triumphs The scenery was also becommg more largc·scalt:> employing enormous painted backdrops o f wood­ land landscapes and vistas of classical Athens. When Madame Yestris and Charles Mathews presented a new production 111 1840, they made a major change. A Midsummer N1ght s Dream was no longer an opera, but restored to its original form s a play. They did continue in the footsteps of Ku1 ble and Reynolds, however, in their scenic ill · proach, employing a diorama to suggest a transpar­ ent wood with shimmering water in the distance, an effect reinforced by thick fog and a sunnsc over the trees The costummg attempted a kmd of ar· A n engravzng from Da\'ld Garnck. s cheological accuracy as well in approximating producllon The Fairies. ( 1763} classical Greek garb. Despite a literalism unknown in Shakespeare' s theater, and the casting o f Madame Yestris herself as Oberon, this was prob· ably the mo!lt faithful production since the ongmal ones, since nothing was added to the text and Shakespeare's original ending, and not a pageant, was used. When Charles Kean did his version in 1856, he once again cut the play substantially, inserting such spectacle as a shadow dance for the fairies He also extended the historical approach by using historical images of Athens and the Acropolis, ac companying these painted backdrops with such cf· 4 fects as the eight year old Ellen Terry (playing Puck) making her entrance on a mushroom rising A century of Dreams (clockwise from upper left.) 1840 Madame Vestris as Oberon m the productron at Covent Garden. 1937 Vivien Leigh as Titania in the Tyrone Guthrie Old Vic production. 1953 june Havoc as Titania at the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre in Stratford, Conn. 1966 Robin Bailey as Oberon, Cleo Laine as Titania and Hywel Bennett {seated) as Puck in a version staged in Edinburgh, Scotland.

. . . opera, masque, fantasy, spectacle invented totally new comic business for the rustics and removed the wings from his fairies, instead gilding their hands and faces and costuming them in bronze tights so they would appear to come from another world. Because of the variety of visual and interDretive styles available to directors and designers of A Mid­ summer Night's Dream, as well as the rich 1ess of the text itself, it has become one of Shakespe< re 's most often produced plays in the modern theater. Some productions attempt to use music as a signifi­ cant aspect of the production, such as :\evill Coghill s version of the piece as Jacobean masque (with John Gielgud as Oberon) and Alvm Epstem's ~ staging, using the Purcell music sung by a chorus, for the Yale and American Repertory Theaters. Some continue the tradition of gossamer fairies and a Vtctorian world (Tyrone Guthrie's 1937 Old Vtc production with Vivien Leigh as Titania) or present a complete adaptation (a Broadway version in the thirties, entitled Swmgmg the Dream, with Louis Armstrong as Bottom). Certain more recent pro­ ductions have attempted a more earthy and from the ground. As Charles Macready said of perhaps even sinister approach. In a 1953-54 pro­ Kean's version, the text was ''more like a running duction at Stratford-upon-Avon, George Devine commentary on the spectacles exhibited than the saw the fairies as a cross between reptiles and birds scenic arrangements an illustration of the text." It and presented Puck as a "stunted Caliban When was also during these elaborate Victorian produc­ John Hancock directed productions in San Fran­ tions that Mendelssohn's music was first used to cisco, Pittsburgh and New York (1966-67). he em­ accompany it. phasized the sexuality and bizarreness of both the The realistic 'scenic approach to the play court and the wood paralleling the ideas ar­ culminated in some ludicrous excesses. George ticulated by the Polish critic Jan Kott in his Lon­ Bernard Shaw wntes of a production by Augustin troverstal book Shakespeare Our Contemporaf). Daly in 1895 wherein all the fairies were fit with Hancock used Pop artist Jim Dine for his desi ner portable batteries and incandescent lights, " which 0 who placed on stage a jukebox which flashed on they switch on and off from time to time, like and off and played electronic Mendelssohn. Htp­ children with a new toy. Str Herbert Beerbohm polyta wore chains and played her first scene in a Tree not only had a realistic representation of a cage, Demetrius had a light-bulb in his codpiece dense forest in his 1911 production, but released and Helena was played by a six foot, four inch tall real rabbits to scamper through it! Max Reinhardt, man. who first directed the play in 1905 in Berlin pro­ Perhaps the most famous production of the re duced a series of more and more elaborate ver­ cent past was Peter Brook' s 1970 interpretation for SIOns, mcluding a 1934 production in the Holly­ the Royal Shakespeare Company. Brook wanted to wood Bowl which became the basis of the 1935 strip away the theatrical heritage of the play and film with Mickey Rooney as Puck and James Cagney as Bottom. emphastze 1ts magic and theatricality. The action l thus took place in a white box where all the actors In reaction to this tendency, however, came the performed their characters, using trapezes and desire of certain producers to emphasize other apparatus associated with magic and the cir- Shakespeare's poetry and allow the imagination of cus. Instead of a real ass's head, Bottom was given the audience to create his landscapes The ex­ a red clown's nose and ears. Titania's bower was a periments of William Poe! and Gordon Craig, for huge cnmson feather which sharply contrasted example, presented Shakespeare's plays almost with the surrounding whiteness. The trees of the without scenery. In 1914 Harley Granville-Barker did not go to this extreme, but his forest for A Mid­ wood were metal coils manipulated by other members of the company. summer Night's Dream consisted of a green velvet mound covered with white flowers, overhung by a Shakespeare used the phrase "her infinite vane· gauze canopy and backed by curtains that could be ty" to describe his Cleopatra. This description cer­ lit in different colors Granville-Barker wanted to tainly applies not only to Shakespeare's canon as a strip away all the Victorian accretions to the play. whole, but to the ways in which his plays, especially 6 He used English folk tunes instead of Mendelssohn, one with the fantastical clements of A M1dsumrner Nights Dream, can be interpreted and performed. • I "

A scene from Peter Brook's 1970 Royal ShaketJII&!'I'e'O)~:::"':o:'" pany production. Alan Howard {left} as Oberon and john Karte as Puck; Sara Kestleman as Titania and David Waller as Bottom. (Opposite page.} Kenneth Ryan as Oberon and Tom Der· ralt as Puck in the 1979-80 American Repertory Theatre production directed by Alvin Epstein. Courtesy of the American ~epertory Theatre.

A Touch of Imagination Director David Jones talks about creating a theatrical experience "where feeling turns all nature upside down"

This interview with David Jones, Artistic Direc­ RO: Many directors, while not trying for an tor of the BAM Theater Company and the direc­ 18th or 19th century kind of realism with tor of A M idsummer N ight's Dream, and Roger scenery, do insist on setting a Shakespeare Oliver, editor of Inside , was taped on November play in a very specific time and place. 21 , shortly after the beginning of the play's Sometimes it's the period of the play, but rehearsal period. often it's a transplanted one, like an Roger Oliver: In directing Shakespeare's American Civil War production of Troilus and Cressida or a Victorian A ll's Well That plays, is there a whole set of problems in­ or What is your volved which don't exist in doing plays by Ends Well Twelfth N ight. other playwrights? reaction to that kind of specificity? OJ: There are two traps you can fall into. One is David Jones: Well, first of all, you do have to get what I call conceptualized Shakespeare, the idea over, both with a company and then w ith an au­ that you can' t do a Shakespeare play unless you dience, the sense that the play is written somewhat have a brilliantly new interpretation and you twist in a foreign language. The language has to be made everything in the play to fit in with your particular accessible again, partly by cutting, partly by learn­ view. And quite often, it seems to me, these are ing to understand it and then communicating to an very superficial concepts that don't bear a great audience. You can' t go fa r wrong w ith Shakespeare deal of close examination. On the other hand, it can if you remember the basic ground rules of how work enormously well. I remember a very simple those plays were staged originally. What really production of Measure for M easure which Jonathan screwed up Shakespeare productions for many Miller did for the touring group of the National years was that with the 18th century we moved in­ Theater. It was set in a fairly nebulous kind of ear­ to a very scenic theater, so actually it became ly 1920s German bureaucracy, with Angelo as a almost li ke opera. Between Act I, scene ii and Act I, civil servant. He was interested in a real nun in the scene iii of a Shakespeare play, fo r example, it 20th century up against a real civil servant and lust might take fi ve minutes to do a scene change and in getting into both their systems. But then he got i~to Victorian England the orchestra played in the pit terrible trouble with all the brothel and low-hfe and so on. But quite often in their original quarto parts of the play because that wasn' t what he was form there are no act or scene divisions w ri tten at interested in. all. Shakespeare envisioned the play as a con­ tinuous running action . We also have to remember that he made enor­ mous demands on or challenges to his audience's imagination. But they were used to that. Even. if they were basically night plays, like indeed A M id­ summer Night's Dream , they were done in the afte.r­ noon, in the open air, on a bare wooden platform m front of a fairly rowdy audience, a popular au­ dience. And many times his desire to tell the au­ dience where they are and the nature of that place, its atmosphere, is contained in the language and not the set designer's art. Now I don't think the answer is to go back to absolutely bare boards and an imitation of the Elizabethan theater. We have moved into a more sophisticated form of the theater where we expect, quite rightly, a bold visual presentation. But that presentation, that creating of a world in which the action of a Shakespeare play can honestly fit , must never get heavy or cluttered or naturalistic in a way that prevents going from scene to scene to scene like the flow of a ri ver. David j ones RO: And what's the second trap? forward. I remember t?e original Wars of the Roses RO: Your production last year for BAM of Theseus and , H i pp ~ lyta the figures of that couple. at Stratford, where R1chard Ill almost was The Winter's Tale was in a similar vein to the OJ: Then there's the feeling of " oh, we will do this So what you re gomg for is a style to capture the Hitler bunker towards the end and the cost m a Love's Labour's Lost you spoke of, wasn't it, one El Greco" or ' we will do this one Goya." They . . · umes essence of what you think Theseus and Hippolyta were done m a version of green and black Ieath in that the visual choices said more about tend to have a painter who has excited them in stand for. But the whole atmosphere of the David style the characters and their relationships and some way and they don' t always examine the im­ e ~~ rather elegant, attempting to recreate or imitate their world rather than trying to be specific. RO: What about the fairies? plications of that against the text. And so you get a classical world, and has nothing to do with the b ~ spuriou~ unity within the production which may OJ: That's right. There are certain plays, The _The huge problem in the play is, of course, the quality ferocious political infighting or be_ warnng absolutely with the spirit of the play. b~ric an~ a~f Winter's Tale is one, and Cymbeline, with its con­ fa1r_I es, and the huge accretion of fairy mythology, Rzchard III. So m that case someone is doin W1th any play, what you try to do is, in partnership tradictions in time and its jump from Roman Brit­ wh1ch was really in a sense started by Shakespeare something they think is rather attractive b with your designers, really discover the essence of ~ so he has only himself to blame! In the Middle Age~ which has nothing to do with the play. ' u ain to Renaissance Italy, and The Tempest, which the play. are really unplaceable in a specific time. You have a~d- reall ~ right up to the end of the 16th century, to use your imagination and it's desperately dif­ fames, w1th a few exceptions, were life-sized en­ RO: And that essence may take you away ficult. I think The Tempest is the most difficult play chanters and enchantresses, with almost human from a specific period? ~ I o_f Shakespeare's to visualize, because every deci­ form and incredibly beautiful, bewitching and D]" For example, I did a production of Love's siOn you make about what Ariel or Caliban looks dangerous. They trailed certain residues of Labour's Lost where it seemed to me that when the li ke limits the enormous multiplicity of image classical and fertility gods with them. It was young men say they're going to give up love and those characters can hold. S~a~esp ~a ~e who fi rst made a literary event out of m 1 ~1a t un zm g t~ e~. And I think he was having w ~men to_ study, they were play-acting to a certain . I?.The Winter's ~ale the problem was contrasting pomt_. I thmk one has to feel a kind of young man's Sic1ha and Bohemia. We saw Sicilia as a world of deh_berate, sophiSticated fun with his audience by physical, sensual possibility with them. So we money. There seemed to be a lot of horse-riding saymg: here are life-sized fairies talking as if they dressed them in a rather dashing Cavalier style. references. It was a slightly spoiled " beautiful peo­ were one inch high. This caught people's fancy to such a degree, however, that by the time you get to But w~en they became scholars, they went into ple" world, where adults were still behaving the 19th century, with Arthur Rackham's illustra­ somethmg based on a uniform still used in an somewhat like children. But there was also tions for A. Midsur:zmer Night's Dream and any English school called Christ's Hospital: long, blue, something rather trim and rigorous about it, so that a ~ o.un t of lilustrat10ns to Grimm's fairy stories, button-down-the-front gowns that come down to whe? Leontes moved into his jealousy, he could fames had become tiny, delicate gossamer ~h e ir ankles. That was an image easily recognized ma~1~ulate the court into an almost all-male op­ creatures with wings. They'd lost that vital connec­ m England as an academic one. The women, on the p ~ sltlOn to_ the wome n. You can get into tion with the earth and magic and real enchant­ other hand, are more mature and free and less misconceptiOns very easily, however. The ment that Shakespeare maintains within his play. courtly So we did them in much more flowing, costumes of the officers in Leontes' s court were ac­ more colorful costumes which had almost an Ed­ t~ a lly base~ on Austro-Hungarian cavalary of­ RO: How have you tried to go against that w~rdian li_ne. And I thought these two styles co­ fleers. But Simply because they had black riding tradition in this production? existed qUite h~ppily within the world of the play. b o o ~ s and were in black, they were perceived as Then the rushes had a little bit taken out of ~ a z 1 ~ostum e s , which certainly was no part of the OJ: I think the trick of it is to jump from whatever Breughel, a little bit out of Goya and so on. You mtent10n. Certainly one was after a macho, hard­ you decide on for the Theseus-Hippolyta world in­ have to be very eclectic. In the end you ask what is ri_ding, tough military academy world. But not the to the fairy world, with a marked difference but the overall deposit I want from this particular kmd of political fascist world in that sense. Those not a total change of the mode of reality. And again scene_ and, therefore, what should the costumes are the risks you take! we've taken the clue for our production from fairy look hke, and then you do a balancing act between documentary accounts (if such things can exist) them. RO: What problems along those lines arise before Shakespeare which said that the fairies turn Some plays are easier than others. You needn't with a play like A Midsummer Night's up in some form of the dress of the time and place do the h1story plays pedantically, as documentary Dream? which they inhabit. So, since we're setting the but equally, I _think it's perverse to do a play Iik~ OJ: The first decision you face is whether court in a kind of 1620, early Charles I period, Rzchard ill as 1t was done recently, in Napoleonic Shakespeare actually did think Greek. The every­ though again, not pedantically, we've given the dress based on t? ~ paintings of David. The play is day world of the play is said to be Athens and the fairy world a ghost of an Inigo Jones masque feel­ about power pohhcs and you certainly can bring it two central characters are associated with classical ing. But the main point is that the fairies wear the Greek heroes. But I don't believe, for example, costumes of that early Charles world burst open, when Shakespeare did Troilus and Cressida or julius freed, letti ng the body break through without boots, etc. The costumes thus suggest abandon, a Caesar that the characters turned up in imitations sense of freedom . They also seem to have natural of Greek or Roman costumes. They probably dress­ growth on them so that when the fairies stand still ed Elizabethan, in modern dress for the time. But between the trees they almost become part of the more importantly, I think there are closer analogies between Theseus and an Elizabethan duke like the landscape. Earl of Essex than between him and some figure of RO: Then you want to suggest both a connec­ Greek mythology. And that's what one has to go tion and a contrast with the mortal and fairy for, particularly if you think that the play may worlds? originally have been a marriage gift for a great lord performed in the chamber of his house, with OJ: Just as when you leave the rational world of joe Morton as Autolycus m the Athens, where there are strict laws and you have to BAM Theater Company's produc­ Theseus and Hippolyta as stand-ins for the married tiOn o{The Winter's Tale couple, as it were, and therefore Shakespeare do what your father or the duke says, once you get 10 11 Photo by Ken Howard would have wanted the audience to project onto in the wood there is enormous freedom and pas- Estelle Kohler and Ian R1chardson 1n the Royal Shakespeare Compan} ·s productiOn of Loves Labour's Lost

sian and release of the libido, we hope the the less easy it is to categorize it. One critic said the costumes will do the same sort of thing. The fairies play is a dance about various themes like dream are romantic, but they're also a little untidy and and waking, the illusion of imagination vs. prosaic wild and strange. But they're not an exotic kind of reality and the contrast between them. But you science fiction fairy world and they're not totally can't say these form the message of the play. It ethereal either. I think the play is suggesting that comes back to Archibald Macleish's statement that the fairies, and particularly this fairy king and " a poem should not mean but be." And as a play A queen, are emblems of another world, a freer Midsummer Night's Dream triumphantly is. And world, a world of passions, where feeling turns all one's main task is to try and realize that. of nature upside down. It's the world of dream and I am fascinated by trying to acheive that shift of nightmare and unconscious desire and fantasy. tipping a very sophisticated audience into a world This is much more important than the audience of release and freedom, a world where everything saying that fairies don't really look like that. One of is possible, anything can happen, fantasies can turn the great games of the play is to say, yes, these are into nightmares or into delights along the line. And actors, but they're going to make you think of the play suggests that there can be an enormous things beyond their concrete, everyday reality. area of chaos, misunderstanding and blindness in RO: When you choose an approach to a play, all that. And yet it's a very necessary shaking up of obviously one of the main determinants is the rational world, so that when you return to the how you see the central issues. As you have daylight, maybe none of the 'dream' has happened, thought about A Midsummer Night's Dream, but in some way it has seeped into your con­ what have you zeroed in on as the most im­ sciousness and made you aware of some basic portant concerns? drives. The lovers aren't quite sure what has hap­ pened to them, but they sure as hell know they've OJ: It's always dangerous to pull themes out of a been through a major transformation. They aren't 12 play. Curiously, the better you get to know a play, educated in the wood as Orlando is in As You Like It, but they are more grown up, more clear-sighted. fairies right after a scene with the most down-to­ In a similar way, audience members who really earth characters in the play, the mechanicals, so release themselves imaginatively to the experience that we do have a sense that we are in a different of the play will have the child-like delight of enter­ world, a strange one. It's only as it goes on that peo­ ing a disturbing, poetic world quite unlike what ple begin to sense that this is a dream or like a they' re going to encounter going home from the dream. There is no signal that we are moving out of theater. At the end, if, as Puck says, they want to reality into a dream, but suddenly we find the dismiss the whole thing as a dream, fine. But I earth becoming a little insecure and the trees of the thmk they will go away enriched, with their im­ wood are a little less substantial than we thought agmations more open and feeling that somehow, they were. somewhere, they have gotten back in touch with very fundamental, subconscious feelings, which RO: Another tradition that has grown up are easy to lose contact with in a modern, urban ex­ alongside the play, in addition to the winged istence. fairies, is the use of music. For a long period it was done only as an opera, and then the RO: Then it's possble to see the whole play Mendelssohn music became dominant. How as a dream? do you see music in your production? DJ: I think the shift is subtle. Shakespeare does DJ: Well I think music is crucial. The music in play the trick of having Puck suggest that Shakespeare is never decorative. Nearly every everything might have been imaginary, but within song, and it's been ignored by a thousand com­ the play, he very clearly distinguishes the first two posers who have set the songs, has been a dramatic scenes, with Theseus and Hippolyta and then the function which suggests how it should be set. lovers followed by the mechanicals, from the rest. Music in Shakespeare is nearly always a symbol of At the end of those scenes the lovers and then the unity and concord. Music plays a very important mechanicals head for the wood. Everything is role in A Midsummer Night's Dream, just as dance geared towards moving into a dangerous, unex­ does. Dance is traditionally a fairy activity, but in plored area. The dream, then, happens after that. I Shakespeare a dance always has to do with a com­ do see the body of the play, until the dawn hunt ing together, a sharing. scene where the lovers wake up and rationality is With the Mendelssohn music, you have the prob­ restored, as a projection of the hopes and fears of lem that plays like the Dream or The Tempest, Theseus and Hippolyta as they are about to be mar­ which are such extraordinary Imaginative explo­ ned. They are enormously independent people in sions, stimulate people who read them into a fur­ their early thirties, both great warriors who have ther imaginative journey Whether it's a composer been great lovers with a string of affairs behind or a painter like Fuseli doing those amazing ba­ them, who are suddenly taking the step of getting roque early Victorian paintings of the Dream. The ·narried. problem then comes when someone tries to put that artistic interpretation back onto the play, RO: So that they see what happens between because the play in its initial purity of imaginative Oberon and Titania, and even the young impulse must be allowed to set off that explosion lovers, as the kind of experiences they might inside the audience's head. The Mendelssohn encounter in marriage? music must happen inside their head, rather than DJ: What they might imagine with Titania and be pasted on top of the play. Also the music in the Oberon, for example, is that marriage might be an play rather than a series of orchestral interludes absolute dogfight, so disturbing as to set the natural and an overture, has to do with key moments, like order at odds. The fact that we hear about the little the lullaby of Titania and when Oberon and Titania Indian boy causing his mother's death in childbirth come together again. And the end, of course, when might be one of Hippolyta' s projections, along with the fairies come together on the marriage night, the the fact that Titania gets involved with a donkey, in music is very crucial. a sen se with totally basic animal desires, I think Shakespearean music should always be something that might make Hippolyta nervous. As simple and not too heavily orchestr~ted .. If it's for Theseus, Oberon's motivation throughout the descriptive, that's slightly at your pen!: With. the play is his rejection by Titania. I don' t think he's Dream the temptation to use atmosphenc musiC to actuall y after that little boy but wants Titania to create the world of the wood and the fairies is very pay attention to him again. So Theseus may be sen­ great, and I think can be embraced up to ~ p~int. sing being replaced by a child's affection, for exam­ But, if you spread a great wallpaper of musiC nght ple. across the show you degrade the moments when Now I don't think that Shakespeare sat down and Shakespeare goes beyond the music of his poetry listed the pre-marriage fantasies people go through. and then calls for the kind of magic of music soun­ ding for the first time in the play when it's suppos­ His imagination just happens to spawn these things 13 and throw them forth. But he does introduce the ed to be there. • AWorld of Enchantment The lore of fairies, goblins, elves, and oth er curious creatures of the spirit

When the writers of the English Renaissance folk tradition of the British countryside were not chose to incorporate the world of fairies into their the diminutive, shimmering creatures of later works, they were calling upon a long tradition of popularity. Many were full-sized creatures with fantasy and folklore. Most cultures have included powers related to enchantment and the spirit of in their mythologies some kind of extra-human nature. Others were household sprites with a figure outside the traditional religious structure. direct connection to peasant life. In fact, with this The size and nature of such supernatural beings latter classification, there is some question as to the have vaned greatly as have the magical powers extent of belief in the actual existence of fairies. In they possess and the influence, both good and evil, some rural areas, fairies might have been con­ they have exerted over the humans with whom sidered more than allegorical/poetic creations and they interact. actual forces in everyday life. This connection is Once Christianity had established itself as the reinforced by the fact that fairies were often dominant religion of Europe, monopolizing artistic thought to dress in clothing similar to the mortals expression as well, folk artists, such as minstrels, with whom they lived. storytellers and the musicians, singers and dancers The term fairy itself is thought to have come W. Heath Robinson who created ballads, festivals and other forms of Fairy elves, from the medieval word fay or fee, which refers to Whose midnight revels, by a forest side entertainment, were forced to find alternative im­ a similar type of creature. Fay, in turn, derives ages. This was especially true of any sexually Or fountain, some belated peasant sees, from fata, the female figure of determination Or dreams he sees, while overhead the m oon related subject, since the Church had forbidden known as one of the Fates. Fairies were originally anything related to the erotic The fairy lore that Sits arbitress. only female creatures but then gradually described John Milton was developed during the Middle Ages, therefore, a whole classification of supernatural folk which Paradise Lost was considered close to religious heresy. Only could vary greatly in size, nature and activity. Thus when European culture became secularized in the in her excellent book on Elizabethan fairy lore, The Renaissance was fairy lore assimilated into the Anatomy o( Puck, Katherine Briggs distinguishes ' ilure of their enterprises. They were capable of mainstream of literary expression four major categories of Renaissance fairies. 11schief, especially stealing children from their The fairies Shakespeare and his contemporaries Shakespeare draws from the first two of these _')a rents and replacing them with changelings. knew both from medieval literature and the oral groups, and, in fact, one of his contributions to the These fairies were also traditionally associated literary history of the fairy was his combination of with music and dancing. Certainly the titanic strug­ different types into a unified perspective. gle waged by Oberon and Titania in A Midsummer The "aristocrats among fairy people" were the Night's Dream identifies them as heroic trooping trooping fairies. Of human or more than human fairies capable of not only enchantment but great size, they participated in such activities as hunting, upheaval. riding in processions and hosting great banquets in The one fairy in Shakespeare's play belonging to their palaces, which were either under hollow hills another category is the Puck or Robin Goodfellow, or across or under water. The Irish version of who is a hobgoblin, the second type. Also known as trooping fairies was indeed seen as dethroned gods, a brownie, the Puck, according to Maureen Duffy while others were certainly heroic figures. Troop­ m The Erotic World o( Faery, was " the English lar, ing fairies could transform their shape, were often the domestic spirit beloved of the Romans, each of extremely amorous and could be capable of anger which had one family under its protection and and vengeance as well as love. They lived accord­ whose shrine was the hearth." In traditional ing to a different time frame, as seven days in folklore, hobgoblins were hairy, brown/r~d fairyland could be seen as equivalent to seven creatures whose activities were basically domestic years of mortal lime (and sometimes vice versa). in nature. They acted as guardian spirits and also In addition to the heroic trooping fairies, there performed chores like sweeping the hearth and were others who could range from small, ordinary cleaning the rest of the house, as well as farmwork. people to three year old children to the size of ants. Although Robin Goodfellow was primarily seen Some of these would be literary fairies, like the as a benevolent creature, there was also a more Oberon of the medieval romance Huon of Bordeaux, mischievous side to his nature. He would lead but others would be domestic, agricultural spirits travelers out of their way and play pranks and 'I I who visited farmers and affected the success or tricks, especially on women, pinching them and ( \'I (\ I v \\I \ If ye will with Mab find grace, causmg them to spill milk or have difficulty mak­ Set each Platter in his place: ing butter. If. however, a farmgirl would leave a Rake the Pier up, and get bowl of milk for him at night, he would help out Water in, ere Sun be set. with the household chores. Because of his mischief­ Wash your Pailes, and dense your Dairies; making, the Puck or Robin Goodfellow was Sluts are loathsome to the Fairies: sometimes seen as a devil rather than a friendly Sweep your house; who doth not so, force. Mab will pinch her by the toe. Robert Herrick The other two types of fairies, m e rmaids, water spirits and nature fairies on one hand and giants, The night is a-glimmer with moon and monsters a nd hags on the other , were not really of star, yet it is dark and fearsome; there great concern to Sha kespeare, although fairies like are gentle birds and gruesome beasts. Moth, Musta rdseed and Peaseblossom in A Mid­ There is a gnomish, fearsome, Macbeth­ summer Night's Dream might be seen as relatives of like quality about the atmosphere, just the nature fairies. In fact, the classification and touching nightmare ... depiction of the fairy world was open to great G. Wilson Knight ( 1932) freedom, since folklore and literary tradition w ere the twin sources of the characterizations and thus Above. Puck by R1chard Dadd ( 1841) Page 17, W. Heath Robmson, subject to a great fl exibility of interpretation. 16 11/ustratwn from 1914 edition of A Midsummer Nights Dream. In addition to his combination of different types The Robbin-good-fellowes, Elfes, Fairies, Hobgoblin s of our latter age, which idolatrous former days and the fan­ tastical world of Greece called Fawnes, Satyres, Dryades and Hamadryades, did most of their merry pranks in the Night. Then ground they malt, and had hempen shirts for th eir labours, daunst in rounds in Greene m eadows .. Thomas Nashe Terrors of the Night (1594 )

of fa ines, Shakespeare's major innovation lies in hts choice to present at least some of his fairies in miniature terms. (Since Oberon and Titania are said to have been involved romantically with Theseus and Hippolyta, they cannot be very much different from normal human size.) Tiny fairies were not Shakespeare's invention, since they had long been part of folklore tradition. He is con­ stdered , however, the first person to emphasize the fai ries' extreme smallness in their literary depic­ tion. This practice was anticipated, moreover, in the Queen Mab speech from Romeo and juliet, thought to have been written not long before the composition of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Mab, the fatry queen, " comes in shape no bigger than an agate-stone on the forefinger of an alderman," and spends much of her time roaming over various parts of people's anatomy. With A Mtdsummer Nrght s Dream we hear of elves able to creep into acorn cups and fairies smaller than bees. Even if these fairies were played by children, as has been suggested, there would still be a dichotomy be­ tween what the audience saw and what they heard described. In a play where imagination is a major theme, Shakespeare was requiring his audience to imagine things in contradiction to what they were seeing. And what better way to do this than with fatries, creatures of the imagination in the first place? It was in the nineteenth century, however, when imagination yielded to a more literal approach to fa iries. They lost most, if not all, of their for­ midable qualities, and became not only diminished tn size but in strength as well. With their little wings and gossamer nature, fairies were objects of Victorian delight and fancy. Thus illustrations and productions alike opted for a prettified approach. Fairies' traditional connection with dreams was noted, but since dreams in this period were depriv­ ed of their true ambiguity and complexity, so were the fairies. If Maureen Duffy is correct in her analysis that the fairy world was traditionally an erotic one, expressing sexuality which could not be expressed with human figures, then the removal of th e sexual aspect of the fairies by the Victorians is consistent with the public policy toward moralitv at that time. • Postscript: A review of the BAM Theater Con1pany's exhilarating premiere season

When the BAM Theater Company began its of 34 actors was chosen from well over one thou­ first season m February of 1980, its announced aim sand applicants. Some of the most exciting talent in was "to provide New York with a permanent American design (for example, Tony award winner classical repertory company" of world caliber. To John Lee Beatty, Dunya Ramicova, Jennifer von translate this dream to reality, Harvey Lichten­ Mayrhauser, David Gropman and John Jensen) stein, President of the Brooklyn Academy of chose to work with the company. Music invited David Jones, Associate Director of The opening play of the premiere BAM Theater the Royal Shakespeare Company and Producer of Company season, William Shakespeare's exquisite BBC Television's "Play of the Month" series, to late romance The Winter's Tale, signaled the com­ form the new company and serve as its Artistic pany's dedication to bold exploration and freshness D1rector. W1th Arthur Penn as Associate Director both in production style and choice of repertory. and Charles Dillingham as Managing Director, Mr. Instead of making comparisons with previous pro­ Jones assembled a company of actors, directors, ductions, audience members were invited to ex­ designers and supporting staff to present an ex­ perience the excitement of becoming involved with citing and innovative inaugural selection of plays. characters and situations as if attending a new In choosing a repertory for the first year, the work. The Winter's Tale's timeless theme of the company was guided by Mr. Jones's determination transcendent power of love was underscored by to present a fresh, distinctly American approach to the production's style, which eschewed a realism the classics. plays that deserve to be done "because of time and place in favor of a more abstract and they are the best plays available to us-plays with therefore universal approach. Several critics from the most compelling narratives, the richest the London press compared the production characterizations, the most exhilirating sense of favorably with work done by their own Royal language." These plays were to be presented with Shakespeare Company. a sense of adventure and exploration, not as The second production, Charles MacArthur's museum pieces. To perform these plays a company 1941 political farce, johnny on a Spot, was a com­ plete change of pace from The Winter's Tale. Un­ Photos by Ken Howard earthed by BAM Theater Company Literary Manager Richard Nelson, the play had been well received during its out-of-town tryout, but opened on Broadway shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and closed shortly thereafter. A perfect choice for an American Presidential election year, johnny on a Spot hilariously spoofs Southern politics, the mass media and political chicanery. Many critics hailed the play as a major rediscovery, some even preferring it to the classic The Front Page , which MacArthur co-authored with Ben Hecht. There was also great admiration for the aplomb with which the newly formed company could perform the Shakespearean romance and American period comedy in alternating repertory. The variety and daring of the first season was further established by Mr. Jones's production of Maxim Gorky's Barbarians, which had never been presented in the United States. Mr. Jones had directed four of Gorky's plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company (including the Obie Award­ winning production of Summer{olk seen at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1975) and is con­ sidered Gorky's foremost interpreter in the

Left, Laune Kenncd}· and Gerl) Bamman m He and She Below She1la Allen and Bill Moor m Barbarians Opposite page Ted Sod left/ as Pucil and Bnan Murray as Oberon m the BAM Theater Company's production of A Midsummer Night s Dream.

company in dealing with another totally different production style, while inviting the audience to ex­ pand its horizons beyond the more familiar Chekhov works which too often overshadow Gorky's substantial and significant achievement. In fostering the belief that a theater company should present plays which shed light on important contemporary issues, the season's fourth produc­ tion retrieved another virtually unknown piece, Rachel Crothers s He and She. Ms. Crothers was one of the most popular playwrights of the American stage before Eugene O'Neill, and in He and She (written in 1911) she dealt with feminist issues still subject to discussion and argument to­ day. Although a contemporary writer might have resolved differently the choice between career and family faced by central character Ann Herford, the play's three acts now precipitate a "fourth act," the discussion which couples engage in on their way home from the theater. Two farces were chosen to conclude the first season Bertolt Brecht's The Wedding and Georges Feydeau s The Purgmg, presented under the title The Weddmg Dance. The one act play is unjustly neglected by major companies and this double bill demonstrated affinities between two authors usually confined to the opposite end of the theatrical spectrum. Performed in the intimate Lepercq Space, these delightful comedies further demonstrated the range and virtuosity of the com­ pany. With these five productions as its history, the BAM Theater Company readies a second season which aims to consolidate past achievements and expand the challenges against which it tests itself. With the exception of The Winter's Tale, all of last year's plays were written within a 50 year period in the twentieth century. This year's repertory spans most of recorded theater history, from Sophocles's Oedrpus the King (430 B.C.) to Brecht's jungle ofCitres (1923 A.D.). In balancing the season, two lesser known and performed plays, jungle of Cities and George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer, have been chosen along with three cornerstones of the international classical repertory, Oedipus the King, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck. Two of English-speaking theater. Barbarians is a complex America's most distinguished designers, Ming Cho play, but its dissection of the clash between the Lee and Santo Loquasto, will join the company and residents of a provincial Russian town and the Associate Director Arthur Penn will stage his first engineers who invade that town in the name of production with the company. Referred to by New progress, provides an important statement about York Times Theater Critic Frank Rich as the transition and human nature that transcends the "miracle" of the 1979-80 season, the BAM Theater play's particular time and place. Furthermore, Bar­ Company will expand its horizons even further dur­ 20 barians provided a large-scale challenge for the ing its second year. •

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