Benjamin Hopkins
Amanda Lauricella and Thomas Alaan, front and center, play Titania and Oberon.
The fantasy of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream nearly becomes the pipe dream of an opium den in University Opera's wild new production.
Director David Ronis has removed the ancient Athens setting and replaced it with Andy Warhol's “The Factory,” a New York studio/play space where the mod artist reigned over his groovy groupies beginning in 1962. Married to Benjamin Britten's 1960 score, it might be retitled Midsummer A Go Go. Ronis must have blown the budget on polyester and vinyl.
When done best, such changes in time and place are for reasons of sociopolitical commentary, thus Orson Welles' 1930s theatrical productions that placed Macbeth in Haiti and Julius Caesar in Nazi Germany. There’s similar potential for allegory in this Midsummer, with its emphasis on vision or “this hateful unperfection of [Titania's] eyes,” as Oberon notes.
For example, there's Warhol’s figurative, artistic vision and implicit criticism of pop iconography. There’s also a lot of sleeping. And what happens during sleep? Literal vision ceases. But in this production, the symbolism runs out of steam pretty quickly, and the The Factory setting seems just for fun.
And what fun it is! Warhol may not have been an asexual countertenor in real life, but it makes shocking good sense toThomas Aláan as a creepy, clingy Warhol/Oberon. On opening night, Amanda Lauricella was exceptionally strong as Tytania, based on Warhol's muse, Edie Sedgwick. Her voice not only has an arching thrill to it, she's completely believable as a fashion model. (Incidentally, Sedgwick's aunt was also a model; that’s her gilded figure on top of the Wisconsin State Capitol dome.)
The part of Bottom is always a star turn, and James Harrington is suitably strong in every way, including comically. In fact, if you come in knowing Shakespeare's original, this is a wildly funny production.
The student cast , most of them undergraduates, is so uniformly strong that — well, when did people so young find time to become so talented? Their 1960s dance moves include the Frug, the Swim, and even the Batusi, invented for Adam West's contemporary TV Batman.
Besides Warhol-esque serigraphs by Liz Rathke and Teresa Sarkela, the main feature of Greg Silver's sly set design is aluminum foil. A bizarre choice, but that actually was how The Factory was decorated. Still, the reflective surface would have been a lighting nightmare if it weren’t for the smart and atmospheric lighting design by Kenneth Ferencek.
The orchestra is dynamic, and although major keys are mighty rare, Britten's chords are characteristically wide though seldom dissonant. In all, this is a pleasant, frothy comic opera.
Opening night, Nov. 15, was sold out. The show repeats Nov. 17 at 2 p.m. and Nov. 19 at 7:30 p.m. in Music Hall. The public is invited to free a pre-performance panel discussion on Nov. 17, from 12:30 to 1:20 p.m. at Music Hall.
