STAGE REVIEW : A Bright ‘Midsummer’ Shines Despite L.A.’s Rainy Skies

Post-riot, graffiti-riddled, garbage-strewn Los Angeles as a setting for Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”?

Get outta here! A nightmare maybe? Nope. Stranger settings may have been attempted, but not many. And given the instant sense of connection the locale produces, one has to applaud both the humor and audacity of the idea.

Its perpetrator is Shakespeare Festival/LA, whose “Midsummer” opened Saturday at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre under a misting rain that deterred no one, not even Mayor Tom Bradley, from staying with the show to the end.

Prominently posted as “A City Redevelopment Project,” the set by designer Fred M. Duer prompted the mayor in his opening remarks to quip that he had feared that the Community Redevelopment Agency had put more money into the production than he knew.

But the bombed-out (quaked-out?) chunks of freeway and the discarded last four letters of the Hollywood sign that litter the weed and debris-ridden stage have their own personal message to impart: Dream or nightmare, this is our midsummer. Only we can claim it, like it or not.

We like it a lot. Credit goes to director Will Roberson for going all the way with its postmodern impudence, which, like most impudent transpositions of Shakespeare, has its misuses as well as its uses. But the latter outweigh the former, and, in the community spirit of these free, free-wheeling annual outdoor Shakespeares, this “Midsummer” has an immediacy that fulfills a double mandate: to make us see things as they are and diffuse the menace with laughter.

Laughter there is plenty of, at the expense of magic, which turns out to be a small price to pay.

Oberon (Patrick O’Connell) and Titania (Gina Spellman) are a dashing couple: he a mustachioed, roustabout in a tired white suit; she a tan-skinned blond voluptuary of rags and patches. (Gifted Caryn Neman has created a pixilated array of motley costumes for this show.) They are King and Queen of the streets, because the only “wood” here, as in forest, is the asphalt jungle.

This presents a logistic problem for our lovers Hermia (Ellen Idleson), Lysander (Nicholas Sadler), Demetrius (Benjamin Bratt) and Helena (Shana Wride), who flee to the forest but never really leave downtown. Similarly, the final wedding feast, including the command performance of “Pyramus and Thisbe,” takes place on Skid Row--a mere hop from the steps of City Hall. Ah, well. Look at it this way: Suspension of disbelief is L.A. all the way.

Idleson’s Hermia, in cutoff jeans, is appropriately pint-sized, and Wride appropriately tall and gawky. Sadler’s Lysander is a hip kid with a lot more moxie than Bratt’s Demetrius in a three-piece suit. But costumes fly, along with tempers, as the chase heats up, and our overwrought lovers end up baring much more than their souls.

Complaints? Their scuffle is somewhat overworked; finding a “bank whereon the wild thyme grows” in Los Angeles might be a daunting project, and actors in peripheral roles get sloppy with the language now and then.

Minor matters all. Intentional anachronisms only add to the fun. See Fred Sanders’ Bottom in a purely American display of an actor warming up for a part; catch the slight shifts in blue-collar professions for the now hard-hatted rustics, and note the use of a work-light to represent the moon in the play-within-the-play.

Even Philostrate, “Master of the Revels to Theseus,” is transformed into Phillida, a superefficient social secretary, starchly played by Jeanne Stawiarski with clipboard and beige suit.

The fun and games are endless, the pacing is brisk, the acting smart. Willowy Cynthia Bond’s Hippolyta is a woman of mystery, Stephen Burks is a mayoral Theseus, Rodney Rincon a blustery Egeus (he also plays Snout) and, in a bold choice, Robert Grossman’s Puck is feisty, agile and middle-age.

What’s abundantly clear is that everyone’s having a swell time, not least the musicians who contribute lively punctuation and original music from musical director Nick Batzdorf.

In its seventh year, Shakespeare Festival/LA has apparently learned to tamper with this classic in the right way. It forces us to take an L.A.-based good-natured look at ourselves that doesn’t overstay its welcome, carry its politics too far or abuse its context. Call it a burlesque, call it a travesty, but above all call it bringing “Midsummer” home to roost with an immediacy and purpose hard to beat.

Stephen Burks: Theseus

Cynthia Bond: Hippolyta

Rodney Rincon: Egeus/Snout

Ellen Idleson: Hermia

Shana Wride: Helena

Nicholas Sadler: Lysander

Benjamin Bratt: Demetrius

Patrick Thomas O’Brien: Peter Quince

Jesus Ontiveros: Snug

Fred Sanders: Nick Bottom

Ben Cleaveland: Robin Starveling

Brian Joseph: Francis Flute

Gina Spellman: Titania

Patrick O’Connell: Oberon

Robert Grossman: Puck

Jeanne Stawiarski: Phillida

John Parmik, Tim Emmons, Nick Batzdorf, Terry Janow: Musicians

A Shakespeare Festival/LA presentation of Shakespeare’s comedy. Producing director Ben Donenberg. Director Will Roberson. Dramaturge Diana Maddox. Sets Fred M. Duer. Lights Michael Gilliam. Costumes Caryn Neman. Sound Robert Murphy, Denny and Carole McLane. Composer/Musical director Nick Batzdorf. Production manager Eileen D. Thomas. Stage manager Susie Walsh.