• ARTS & CULTURE •
Ash Saunders, Erica Mae McNeal, Phillip C. Curry, Azeem Vecchio and Syanne Green
‘Midsummer’ finds the magic in enslaved people n Athens, there are a people who perform magic, manipulating the world around them while those in power either never see them or write them off as boorish, ignorant folk good only for their service and entertainment. It’s the story of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and director James Fowler is moving the Open Fist Theatre Company’s production to Athens, Georgia, in a pre-Civil War period where the fairies and mechanicals are enslaved people while Theseus is a judge and the people of Athens are white plantation owners. The show will run at the Atwater Village Theatre until Saturday, Aug. 13. It’s inspired by the line, “That would hang us every mother’s son,” spoken by Bottom, the weaver who is part of an acting company that will play before the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta, rulers of Athens. “I was stunned to discover how well this concept works with the text,” Fowler said. “It makes sense that the fairies, unseen to the lovers, are invisible to the plantation owners around them because they are enslaved. I imagine African slaves on the plantations as people who, despite horrendous hardship, carried magic. In this
production, we’re able to see their magic played out in the lives of the people around them who don’t ever see them.” Fowler, who has directed and acted in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” said he’d been sitting with this concept for several years. During the pandemic, he did a virtual table reading and later approached Martha Demson, Open Fist’s artistic director, with the vision. Not only did she like it, but she wanted to put it up immediately. In a very short time — less than a month, he, Demson and the company’s production manager put together a cast with Phillip C. Curry as Oberon, Ash Saunders as Titania, Monazia Smith as Puck, Michael A. Sheppered as Bottom, Debba Rofheart as Peter Quince, Malik Bailey as Mustardseed and Flute, Syanne Green as Peaseblossom and Starvling, Erica Mae McNeal as Cobweb and Snout, Azeem Vecchio as Moth and Snug, Bryan Bertone as Theseus, Heather Mitchell as Hippolyta, Alexander Wells as Egeus, Sandra Kate Burck as Hermia, Dylan Wittrock as Lysander, Anna-Laurie Rives and Ann Wilding alternating as Helena and Devon Armstrong and Nick Mizrahi alternating as Demetrius. Fowler said that, as a person of color, he’s constantly thinking about how he can
John Dimitri/Submitted
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By Bridgette M. Redman Pasadena Weekly Contributing Writer
14 PASADENA WEEKLY | 06.30.22
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