Wes­ley Gib­bings

William Shake­speare's tragi­come­dies are strik­ing res­o­nant chords with lo­cal drama­tists in this pre-CXC sea­son. The Trinidad The­atre Work­shop's (TTW) pro­duc­tion of A Mid­sum­mer Night's Dream was no ex­cep­tion dur­ing its run at the TTW base in Bel­mont.

The pro­duc­tion fol­lowed on the heels of Deb­o­rah Jean-Bap­tiste-Samuel's re­cent adap­ta­tion of Oth­el­lo and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go's (UTT) pro­duc­tion of As You Like It–the for­mer of ar­guable comedic but un­doubt­ed val­ue as dark tragedy. Young thes­pi­ans at St Joseph's Con­vent, St Joseph, al­so had an en­ter­tain­ing go at A Mid­sum­mer Night's Dream two weeks be­fore.

The ex­perts may choose to de­bate the tech­ni­cal des­ig­na­tions, but TTW's Tim­mia Hearn Feld­man's ex­pert in­ter­pre­ta­tion of A Mid­sum­mer Night's Dream re­minds us, through the words of the Duke of Athens, The­seus, of the "very trag­i­cal mirth" of mis­guid­ed in­fat­u­a­tion and be­tray­al, the nar­ra­tive of which is wound through the play's three care­ful­ly and elab­o­rate­ly-plait­ed plots.

Much would not have been lost on a knowl­edge­able TTW au­di­ence, how­ev­er dense and some­times in­ac­ces­si­ble the po­et­ic di­a­logue. But Hearn Feld­man's use of lo­cal Car­ni­val char­ac­ters to rep­re­sent the spir­its of Eliz­a­bethan woods at­tempts to ex­tract from the con­flicts of the nether­world greater mean­ing in the con­text of a T&T of years past and present. It works.

Mu­si­cian Nick­o­lai Sal­cedo is par­tic­u­lar­ly con­vinc­ing as The­seus and then the con­niv­ing Oberon, king of the fairies, who gets his jester, Puck (Kearn Samuel), to ad­min­is­ter the nec­tar of a mag­ic flower to the eyes of Oberon's can­tan­ker­ous wife, Ti­ta­nia (Afi Ford-Hop­son), who then falls in love with the low­ly Nick Bot­tom, al­so played by Samuel, who wears the head of a don­key.

The mag­ic flower is al­so un­wit­ting­ly used to tem­porar­i­ly de­rail a de­vel­op­ing ro­mance be­tween Her­mia (Tis­han­na Williams) and Lysander (Arnold Goind­han) when Oberon in­structs Puck to use the mag­ic charm on Demetrius (Sol­er Phillips) who has been spurn­ing the ad­vances of He­le­na (Sindy Nurse). The flower is er­ro­neous­ly passed over the eyes of Lysander who now falls in love with He­le­na. The en­su­ing con­fu­sion flows like a Ray­mond Choo Kong farce on steroids. Ex­cept, this is Shake­speare and this is TTW.

The criss-cross­ing of in­ter­re­lat­ed sto­ries moves smooth­ly along but must have been a di­rec­tor's night­mare in the face of a small Bel­mont fa­cil­i­ty, whose dra­mat­ic si­lence is some­times bro­ken by pass­ing ve­hi­cles with 12-inch woofers.Hearn Feld­man be­lieves the play's in­ter­lock­ing sto­ries "are deeply re­lat­able to us in con­tem­po­rary T&T". But, to her cred­it, the con­nec­tions are man­aged with sub­tle­ty and are not over­ly con­trived in the ac­tion of the play, which flows vir­tu­al­ly flaw­less­ly for close to two hours.

Much of this re­sults from the work of a fine cast, which in­cludes the ex­pe­ri­enced Goind­han, who moves seam­less­ly from roles as Lysander, Cob­web and one Pe­ter Quince, who leads a rag-tag band of labour­ers/ac­tors prepar­ing for a per­for­mance at the wed­ding of The­seus and Hip­poly­ta.There's al­so Samuel, who plays four char­ac­ters–Puck, Egeus (Her­mia's fa­ther), Bot­tom, and Philostrate (chief or­gan­is­er of fes­ti­vals). He is seen by the au­di­ence be­fore, since he makes him­self avail­able for a some­what amus­ing pre-show stare-down at the TTW front door.The tal­ent­ed Tis­han­na Williams is as­signed theroles of Her­mia, Peas­blos­som and an in­ept Fran­cis Flute, who gets his lines scan­dalous­ly wrong when it's fi­nal­ly time to per­form at the wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny. Williams' ver­sa­til­i­ty as an ac­tress is tak­en to the lim­it through Her­mia's elab­o­rate lines as a lovesick young woman to the fairy world of Peas­blos­som to the slap­stick ter­rain of Fran­cis Flute who, in turn, plays the lovesick This­be in a fun­ni­ly-bun­gled per­for­mance be­fore The­seus and his bride.

The mul­ti-tal­ent­ed Williams is an amaz­ing young tal­ent with a great role to play in the fu­ture de­vel­op­ment of T&T the­atre. She is al­so an ac­com­plished vo­cal­ist with ex­pe­ri­ence in di­rect­ing as well.Then there is ac­tress/mod­el Sindy Nurse, with sol­id per­for­mances as He­le­na, Moth and Snug. As He­le­na, she plays sec­ond fid­dle to the more favoured Her­mia as far as Lysander's at­ten­tion goes, but her lines are among the more poignant in the ear­li­er parts of the play: "Hap­py is Her­mia/where­soe'er she lies;/For she hath blessed and at­trac­tive eyes./How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:/If so, my eyes are of­ten­er wash'd than hers./No, no, I am as ug­ly as a bear;/For beasts that meet me run away for fear..."Afi Ford-Hop­son plays Hip­poly­ta and Ti­ta­nia with en­thu­si­asm and cre­ativ­i­ty. Sol­er Phillips gen­er­ates some of the hearti­est laughs from the au­di­ence with his por­tray­al of the in­ept Tom Snout, one of the labour­ers/drama­tists per­form­ing at the wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny.

This is qual­i­ty the­atre un­der less than sat­is­fac­to­ry con­di­tions, though. On an­oth­er oc­ca­sion, the case will be made for a bet­ter deal for one of the coun­try's most durable, pre­mier the­atre com­pa­nies with a his­to­ry go­ing back to the heady days of 1959 and a dream that No­bel lau­re­ate Derek Wal­cott shared with leg­endary per­son­al­i­ties such as the late Beryl Mc Burnie and Er­rol Jones, Fred Hope and Eu­nice Al­leyne.