Few plays are as universally beloved as Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Everyman Theatre’s new production of the beloved romantic comedy, which runs from May 12 to June 9, is a wonderful way to kick off the spring arts season.
Jmore recently spoke with Noah Himmelstein, Everyman’s associate artistic director and a Baltimore native, about the show and his unique spin on the Shakespearian classic.
Jmore: What’s your vision for this play?
N.H.: We have a wonderful resident company of actors and in the artistic planning sessions last year, we were talking about new ways to utilize the company. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to do this play that most theater companies tackle at some point or other and have some of the younger roles be played by middle-aged actors in the company?’
I was really moved by the idea because this play speaks to you no matter where you are in life. It’s one of those great pieces that’s done so often for a reason. As I was talking to the actors, I was hearing feedback of, ‘Oh, I did that play when I was 19. I’m at a totally different place now in my mid-50s, yet these words are so juicy and the characters are so rich. What would it be like to play these roles again or play a different role in the piece that I haven’t done before?’ It began there.
Who will star?
The four young lovers are played by Deborah Hazlett, Jefferson A. Russell, Bruce Randolph Nelson and a wonderful D.C. actor named Natalya Lynette Rathnam. These roles normally go to young artists, but these actors are masters of their craft and classically trained and are going to bring a whole other dimension to it.
Their bodies and their physicality will tell one story, and the words will tell another. I think we’ll find something rich and surprising.
Are there any particular themes you chose to explore?
The play begins in this court where there’s corruption and inequity and imbalance, and all of these characters go into the forest and everything is turned on its head. When they arrive on the other side, they’re able to integrate this playfulness and joy and inhibition with the rigidity and the corruption that is happening.
The kinds of pieces that I’m looking to work on right now acknowledge the turmoil that we’ve all experienced the past couple of years, but reconnect with a new kind of joy. It’s fabulous to go into nature with this play.
Speaking for myself and people that I talk to all the time, nature has been such a saving grace as tensions get higher. What’s really interesting is there’s a lot of evidence in Shakespeare’s [writing] that there was a major climate event [a mini-ice age] in the 1590s. The central premise of the play is that the seasons are out of order. People’s desires being misplaced was a direct comment on the really strange weather patterns. It’s hard not to look at that [in 2024] and not feel the relevance.
What makes the play feel contemporary?
I was inspired by the time period in which the actors [were teens and young adults]. So in the discovery phase of the play, I was drawn to the late 1970s, early 80s. There’s so much fabulous music, whether it’s Stevie Nicks or David Bowie. … People were experimenting with higher states of consciousness, either through hallucinogens or dream work or meditation. …
That was a great path to go down, because one of the really important things about doing this play is it needs to be an enormous amount of fun. It’s kind of crazy. There’s incredibly beautiful celestial imagery, a lot of crazy sex and drug use and mistaken identities. It’s a farce.
What was it like to work with the designer and creative team?
One of the things I love about being a director, and specifically at Everyman, is we go through a very long process of design. It’s about a year before our first rehearsal, and you never know where the best idea is going to come from. I try to keep a really open room so that ideas can just flow. Sometimes it’s going through magazine articles, pictures, paintings, history. Sometimes we look at other productions. …
With this play, we’re looking at the clothes from the New Romantic era of the early ‘80s, which feels like it could also be 16th century because they were inspired by these great English Victorian clothes. You’ll probably see about 10% of [what was explored in the design process] in the production, but the way to get a really creative, experimental, inclusive process is to have this long schedule. You really can do anything with this play and still tell the story beautifully.
How do you expect the play to resonate with audiences?
I think they will be extremely surprised. A lot of people think they know this play, and it’s a wonderful play to revisit. It will also be a fantastic introduction to Shakespeare. It’s about parents; it’s about children; it’s about your first love; it’s about your second love. When you are 25, it means one thing. When you’re 75, it means another.
For tickets and more information, visit everymantheatre.org.
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