A Wild “Midsummer’s Night” Makes Spring in Bangkok Even More Exciting

The most challenging thing about staging a 400-year old play is finding a way to make it fresh and new.
Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” is many things: a rollicking comedy, a meditation on true love and a concentrated dose of wicked sarcasm and wit, among others. But fresh and new? This remarkable play has been around since 1595.
You were probably tasked with reading it at some point in high school, and you’ve no doubt heard or uttered at least one of its famous lines.
“What fools these mortals be!”
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
“I know a bank where the wild thyme grows.”
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.”
In just three weeks, Bangkok Community Theatre (BCT) will be asking audiences to look with their eyes and their minds at a surprisingly fresh and new staging of this classic comedy.
Director Michael Allman, one of the creative forces behind BCT, has infused this classic play with modern twists in staging and casting.
He’s chosen to produce this show in-the-round — with audience gathered on all sides of the players — and in a conference room at BNH Hospital, rather than a conventional theater. The goal is to bring the audience right into the action, breaking down some of the barriers of formality that often intimidate people about Shakespeare.
The show’s multicultural cast of eight actors is also doing the challenging work of playing 20 different roles, and the casting is nontraditional: Several of the traditionally male roles are being ably played by actresses.
“I’ve cast this production with many more women than is usual for Shakespeare,” says Allman. “We see many more women in positions of authority in our world today and I wanted to reflect that on stage. So Oberon, Puck, Bottom and Egeus — all roles that are usually played by men — are filled by women in this production.”
And because the story is so centered around sleeping, dreaming and waking up in confusion, all of the actors and actresses will begin the play in pajamas. Literally, in pajamas. As the performers “wake up” in full view of the audience, each one slowly gets their bearings and finds costume pieces to put on. The audience will watch them begin to assume the roles that they’ll play in the show.
The biggest challenge? The actors and actresses remain on stage throughout the show.
“That means the actors are going to be close to the audience and that everyone can see everyone else all through the play,” Allman explains. “Usually the actors don’t get a chance to see many of the audience reactions, because they are ‘backstage.’ I think it will be great fun for the actors to see parts of the play that they are not acting in.”
The actors, who come from Thailand, India, the U.S. and the U.K., have been reveling in the rehearsal process
“Shakespeare’s texts are so rich, and circumstances so extreme,” says actor Ric Hizon, who plays Demetrius, Flute and Mustardseed. “You get to tread ground that’s hardly ever death with in modern plays.”
Tickets are selling quickly, but they are still available at the moment. (And ticket proceeds are being used for good: In celebration of the show, BCT is making a donation of 25,000 Baht to the Queen Sirikit Center for Breast Cancer on behalf of BNH Hospital.)
Don’t miss the show:
William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
March 23, 24, 25, 30, 31 and April 1st (no fooling!), all shows at 7:30pm (19:30) at BNH Hospital.
Tickets: bangkok.oneplace.events/theatre/a-midsummer-nights-dream-bct