Midsummer Night's ArtFarm

Yesterday we went to our first evening of Shakespeare-in-the-park since Nicholas was born, a production of Midsummer Night’s Dream put on by an eco-friendly, socially responsible company called ARTFARM, based in Middletown, CT (you can read a little more about them here). Their goal is “creating quality theater with a commitment to environmental sustainability and social justice.” This year, the production was hosted by Middlesex Community College on a lovely, gently sloping, lawn—but the larger goal is for the company to grow “to the point where ARTFARM is situated on a nice piece of farm land in Maromas or some other secluded spot near Middletown, mounts a major free outdoor Shakespeare production every summer, and during the school year draws folks from throughout New England for workshops and retreats, as well as having performances and educational residences available for touring to schools, colleges, and art centers.” The directors and co-founders are Dic Wheeler and Marcella Trowbridge, and on the “social responsibility” front they already have a good record in CT of getting inner-city kids involved in theatre. As for the environment, they’d like to establish their farm partly as an act of resistance to the rate at which CT farmland is being gobbled up by developers.

Before the production started we visited a little composting exhibit, where Nicholas got to plant some carrot seeds in some rich, black earth inhabited by a band of extremely vigorous earthworms. We also made a “sculpture” out of a glass jar, pipe cleaners, and crepe paper streamers, and then hung it in a tree along with a bunch of other audience-made constructions. Roving performers wandered around on stilts, juggling, and, mercifully, there was an ice cream truck to help us beat the heat.

I really love to see well-done outdoor productions of MSND—you get that magical “summer feeling” (as in the great Jonathan Richman song), fairies tumble and frolic in the woods, love is in the air (hey, I think that may be a song too), the usual rules are suspended (for at least a little while), and it all works out in the end. This production was quite student-y, but didn’t disappoint. An impressively dreadlocked Oberon was a little too Black Sabbath-influenced in his bellowing for my taste, but a buxom Titania sexed things up appropriately (given this play’s general randiness), and Bottom brayed his lines joyfully, surrounded by fairies and clearly tickled (literally) by his predicament. We had to leave early to get Nicholas home, and by then it had already become impossible to keep things straight—after all, the play features a pretty impressive tangle of twinings. But for a while it worked, with a little whispered translation to go along with the spectacle: he loves her but she loves that other guy…fairies just like to play tricks on people…everybody’s having a “wild rumpus” (like Max in Where the Wild Things Are)…there’s a magic potion that makes people fall in love…they just turned him into a donkey, etc. etc.

As we left we moseyed toward the parking lot feeling a bit lighter, tossed a little money into the over-sized cardboard “hat” being passed around, and wished them luck.