The show must go on.
It's a theater standard.
FAQ
‘A Midsummer
Night’s Dream’
WHEN — 7:30 p.m. July 8-12
WHERE — Gulley Park gazebo in Fayetteville
COST — Donations are sought for Planting Peace’s CrowdRise based in Orlando and the Northwest Arkansas Center for Equality
INFO — crudemechanicals@gm…
In the case of the Crude Mechanicals, a Shakespeare troupe based in Fayetteville, that means putting together a production with cast members coming from their respective colleges and summer programs in several states. It means rehearsing in the surprising June heat -- and the occasional thundershower -- for outdoor performances in the always blistering July heat. It means populating a sizable complement of "Midsummer Night's Dream" characters with 11 actors -- and bending genders both to meet the need and just because they can be bent.
But this summer, it also means taking a stand.
"Love is love. And hate is hate," says Zach Stolz, a University of Arkansas theater graduate and co-founder of the company. "Our hearts were broken by the news of the shooting in Orlando ... To see such an unspeakable act of violence and persecution come into this world left us hollow and speechless.
"In an act of solidarity The Crude Mechanicals will be dedicating this summer season in the memory of those lost.
"The theater is our home," he goes on. "We've all found our way here for one reason, or another. Whether it's because we weren't comfortable in our skins, needed outlets of escape, or simply wandered into the wrong classroom and never found our way out, we know that without theater our lives would be infinitely poorer. We, all of us, found a world where we were embraced for who we were and encouraged to be ourselves, loudly, proudly and without fear. Fearlessness in our art is something we strive for with every production."
Stolz says some of the company's actors are gay but all are LGBTQ allies -- "and are very proud of saying that we are allies." He says stepping out right now does come with a fear factor, "but when has that ever truly held back the arts? If we don't stand by our beliefs, who will?"
The company was born on strongly held beliefs, says T. Kyle Smiley, its co-founder.
"We want to do what every Shakespeare troupe wants to do," he admits. "We want a whole new generation of people to not think of Shakespeare as a dead language or dead stories ... not to think, 'Oh, we can do the same story without the tedium' of learning that language.
"We want that language to be spicy and different and inspire people to new ways to describe yourself or your lover or your enemy...
"You can put on the showiest Shakespeare spectacle in the world," Smiley adds, "but if nobody knows what the text is, what's the point? We want everybody in the audience to know what the hell we're saying!"
In this case, it will be four interconnected tales held together by the wedding of Duke Theseus of Athens and the Amazon queen, Hippolyta. Roger Ebert called the film version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" "an enchanted folly suggesting that romance is a matter of chance, since love is blind; at the right moment we are likely to fall in love with the first person our eyes light upon. Much of the play's fun comes during a long night in the forest, where the mischiefmaker anoints the eyes of sleeping lovers with magic potions that cause them to adore the first person they see upon awakening."
"Love is love," as Stolz says.
NAN What's Up on 07/01/2016