The performance of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Jeremy Hutton in Hart House in November and December has numerous outstanding points. By the next-to-perfect physical ability of the players, the meticulous depiction of the personages, the use of multifarious colors proportionate to each role, the play could very well portray the decay of a patriarchal discipline in post middle age Europe – where the fathers’ rules can not be as decisive as they once were in their daughters’ life.

And, it is not only that. The impeccable transitory parts, in which after an apparently real one, reality is blurred in the following part, demonstrated a fantastic composition of light and music. In great sequence of dark and bright scenes, eastern theme to transfer the magic component was very well combined with the scherzo-like enticing pieces. The only person, who played both the most serious and the most ludicrous roles, i.e., the ass, must have had something unique; his moustache gave his countenance the expression of such a character. In the play-within-the-play parts, which are technically very difficult to handle, the director could successfully show how apparently non-players can indeed play by obvious not-playing.

If you happen to have seen this work more than once, with a gap of one week between the two, you might have noticed some improvements in the later performances. The scenes in which two characters wet their pants were much more hilarious the second time. The lion, one of the characters, could show how he is disappointed with his mean role more dramatically by holding up a paper for a few seconds, and quite visible to the audience, on which it was written “Roar”. The fairies’ reaction to the ass and the bride’s going into the chariot was more natural and showed both their curiosity and jolliness; they were in general more harmonious.

All this overshadows a few points which, I think, could still be improved. For instance, the accent of the characters could be further ameliorated, and the harmony among the fairies could be worked on more. However, this does not, in any sense, mean that it was not a successful performance. This impression is confirmed both by the roar of laughter of the audience during the play and their long-standing applause in the end of it. In the very last scene, once the couples go to bed, Puck, whose misuse of the love juice was partly the cause of this tumult, notifies the audience that all this was just a play, reminds us of Bertold Brecht’s Distancing Effect, and invites the audience for further reflection.