At the moment, the dedicated thespians are gearing up for company’s 14th year and a production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The comedy will be staged Friday, Aug. 18 through Sunday, Aug. 20 at South Park Green. Admission is always free with donations appreciated. The outdoor setting makes it special, with audience members only asked to bring a lawn chair. If it rains, everyone moves to Hope Lutheran Church, 500 Hickory St.
Why Shakespeare? The Bard is timeless and universal, Wilson says. “Some people shy away from Shakespeare because they find the language difficult to understand,” he says. “But many of those barriers evaporate when a play is performed and the action carries the meaning of the words.”
Kelly Johnson agrees. She’s lived in South Park for more than 20 years. It’s her 10th season with the theater company; next week she’ll play Titania, the queen of the fairies. “I know people are often put off by the idea of Shakespeare or they may have had a bad experience,” she says. “This director knows how to make the play fresh and funny. And I’ve been very impressed with this cast, and especially the younger actors, who really make the language feel alive.”
Johnson says she finds it a delight to go through the process of bringing the words of these plays to life and discovering what they can mean. “Every year I learn from fellow actors and the director, and every year learning to inhabit a new character expands my understanding of people,” she says. She also notes outsiders are sometimes incredulous when she tells them her neighborhood puts on plays by Shakespeare. “We put on these plays for the love of community and art,” she responds. “Art is for everyone.”
Beyond the neighborhood
Over the years, Wilson and Tonne have been joined by a team of dedicated volunteers — set builders, costumers, technical artists, directors, actors and more. All give freely of their time and talent. This year, half of the cast and the entire production team are current or former South Park residents. Nine of this year’s 23-member cast are new to the company; 14 are veterans. Audiences come from everywhere.
“We are here to enjoy working together, not necessarily to advance our résumés, although many team members have stage credits with multiple companies,” says Wilson. “No one is clawing their way to the top or attempting to upstage other actors. Our motto is SiSP (Shakespeare in South Park) —where all the drama is on stage. We are here to have fun and we think this translates into the audience also having fun.”
John Wysong, who lives in Gratis, loves the fact that the theater troupe is made up of a bunch of neighbors with the audacity to put on challenging shows again and again. “We gather in a park, under the trees, and before you know it, we’ve created some magic!” says Wysong, who was 51 when he made his acting debut with the company in 2016. His initial jump into the world of community theater has changed his life. Since then, Wysong has been in area theatrical productions almost continually, making more than 100 stage appearances.
About the play
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a magical love story set in the structured and orderly world of ancient Athens and, simultaneously, in a spiritual and chaotic fairy kingdom. The two become comically intertwined; the fairies can see the humans but the humans cannot see the fairies who are toying with them. The play and its characters explore a wide range of love relationships — infatuation, romantic love, unrequited love, obsessive love.
Wilson says a plot that involves human relationships tangled by interference from other-worldly beings should sound familiar. “Think about ‘Bewitched’ and ‘I Dream of Jeannie,’ he says. “Shakespeare clearly had fun writing this play and even poked fun at himself and all poets everywhere.”
The drama also explores the boundaries between dreams and reality. One character, Bottom, lives in both. He is temporarily sucked into the fairy world but can’t remember it once he is released!
David Meadows, who lives in Medway, will portray Bottom. “Playing this character is complex, like any similar everyman character who exemplifies the best and the worst of human qualities as he makes his way from selfishness to welcoming camaraderie.” he notes. “Bottom is the classic Fool — a necessary part of every person which we all seek to recognize and to accept as we self-actualize.”
It’s common to experiment with the classic plays and to set them in various time periods. Director Jene Shaw has chosen to set this play in our own time. “Setting the play in 2023 highlights the complexities of connecting with others, and helps the audience relate to the characters and relationships,” she believes. “The drama resulting from these romantic relationships could as easily be the subject of a gossip column today as it is the subject of a 400-year-old play.”
So you’ll see fashion-conscious bigwigs and blue-collar townsmen. Lysander, one of the lovers played by Chris Petree, even wears an Athens, Ohio T-shirt. In contrast, the fairies wear fanciful and timeless garments.
Power struggles abound
Underlying “Midsummer” is a running theme of power struggles. “Human struggles, however, do not hold a candle to those playing out in the fairy kingdom, where they have been alternately simmering and boiling over for millennia,” Wilson says. “Don’t expect these struggles to resolve in two hours on stage!”
Johnson notes that at the beginning of the play the king and queen of fairyland are fighting over who rules. “In the end, I’m happy to say, nobody rules fairyland,” she says. “It’s not that kind of a place. Titania is a queen caught up in a power struggle, defending her turf against her consort Oberon. Then she falls under a spell that puts her in a very different state of mind, and I think in the end it’s very good for her. She’s still the queen, still powerful, but in the night, she gets in touch with a different side of herself!”
Amelia Merithew plays the mischievous Puck, who is always interfering with other characters and also narrates the play. “The thing that’s been difficult about playing Puck is how physical it is,” she says. “I try to never stop moving while on stage.”
Shaw says South Park Green is the perfect place to stage this story. “In this play, everyone gets lost in the woods before finding themselves,” she explains.
Shaw believes there’s a reason why ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ is one of Shakespeare’s most popular comedies. “The characters, conflicts, plot, story and themes are timeless, and are as relevant now as when the play was written,” she says. “Great comedies allow us to both laugh at the characters and empathize with them, and thereby laugh at ourselves and take ourselves a little less seriously. This is a play about the foibles, mishaps and foolishness of those in love. In the first scene, Lysander muses sadly: ‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’”
Wilson believes “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is the most accessible of all Shakespeare’s plays and perfect for those who may be seeing a live production for the first time. “First, the story is easy to follow. Second, it plumbs the pinnacles of human emotion — love and hate — but playfully. Third, its sorrows are short-lived and the happy ending comes speedily. It’s the ultimate feel-good Shakespeare play.”
HOW TO GO
What: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
Where: South Park Green, 601 Hickory Street, Dayton, just west of Wayne Avenue
When: August 18-20; Friday through Sunday at 8 p.m.
Admission: Free. Donations are gratefully received.
More information: https://www.facebook.com/shakespeareinsouthpark2023 or call 937-222-7324.
Note: Bring a lawn chair or blanket. Park at Hope Lutheran Church (500 Hickory) or Emerson Academy (501 Hickory). In case of rain, the show will be performed at Hope Lutheran Church (500 Hickory).
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