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Seferina Berch Seferina Reviews A Midsummer Night's Dream at New York City Ballet  Maybe you're like me. You worked on A Midsummer Night's Dream in school for a month or two, so when you saw the High Five listing, you said: "Yes!" After seeing the Lincoln Center production, I'm still saying yes, but maybe for different reasons. First, the dancing was quite wonderful. The difficult role of Puck, played by Adam Hendrickson, was played very well. But the children playing the forest sprites were everyone's favorites. If there was anything that didn't work in the ballet, it was probably when they inserted songs. Maybe if there'd been singing right from the beginning, it would have been fine. But to suddenly hear voices -- it was as if a mime had started talking in the middle of his show. Which leads to the big question -- how does the ballet compare to the play? Well, studying Shakespeare in class, you think he's all about puns and tricky word play and complex phrasing. A ballet version of the play, like this one, has no words; it relies on the dancers to convey to the audience both what's happening and how the character feels about it. True, if you aren't familiar with the play -- a woman in the restroom said she thought this was Sleeping Beauty -- the plot might have been confusing. But it was easy to see it was a love story. In fact, the ballet version, with all the romantic dancing in the second act, seemed more positive about love than Shakespeare, who can be rather cynical. Still, the ballet did convey a major theme of Shakespeare's: that the affairs of humans were amusing and emotional, as opposed to the graceful and beautiful faery world. The music and the dance bring out the emotions of the play, instead of just its cleverness. So I'd say study your Shakespeare text to appreciate the complexity of the play, then try the ballet -- Shakespeare-without-the-words -- to actually feel the play. |