The production runs Thursday through Saturday on the Amherst campus.
Tony Simotes
Shakespeare & Co. artistic director Tony Simotes is bringing a unique twist to the action in the University of Massachusetts Theater production of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” opening Thursday at the Fine Arts Center.
He’s setting the action in 1950s Greece.
In the play, Shakespeare introduces the members of court, a group of actors also known as the mechanicals, and the inhabitants of a fairy kingdom. Hilarious shenanigans and romantic entanglements ensue as members of these various groups connive and canoodle.
“I wanted to put the play into greater context for the students, one that had a deeper meaning that the cast could grasp as opposed to being just set in Greece,” said Simotes.
He said the more contemporary time period represents a time of change for Greece, with the upheavals of World War II followed shortly by a civil war, which pitted royalists against communists, a division in society that lines up with the play’s forward-thinking lovers and traditional mechanicals, with the Greek gods providing the magical element.
Calling the play a “true classic,” Simotes said one of the reasons the piece can make a clear transition to a modern day setting is due to Shakespeare’s use of language in the play.
“The play is written with very little idioms of the times, and it is remarkable how contemporary the language feels. I haven’t had to change a word in the play to make it clearer. You could tell this was one of Shakespeare’s more sophisticated plays. He was becoming more sophisticated as a writer in his use of language and rhyming of humor,” said Simotes.
Simotes has been involved with dozens of productions for the company he leads, but Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” holds a special significance for him. When he co-founded the company in 1978, his first role with the group as an actor was the part of Puck in the play.
And, he admitted another reason for finding the offer attractive to direct “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for the UMass Theater’s season finale.
“We’re planning to do the play at Shakespeare & Co. for our 40th anniversary five years from now. And this is giving me an opportunity to experiment with the play to see what works,” said Simotes.
Anna-Maria Goossens, public relations director for the Department of Theater at UMass, said this is the second year that Simotes has worked with students at the university and that they are “thrilled to have such a fantastic director from a nationally-renowned theater.”
“This is just a wonderful opportunity for our students to learn with someone who has had a major impact in the field,” she said.
Simotes said he relishes the teaching part of his directorial work with the UMass Theater students.
“These students are getting a terrific education at UMass, yet it is a liberal arts school and not a conservatory, so they are doing many different things and learning many different subjects. Because many will not be going into the business, there is a freshness to the way they approach the work. And, that is great for someone like me, because they bring, in a way, a fearlessness that they might not otherwise bring to something like this,” said Simotes.