Mecca tackles ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/02/2025 (207 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For far too many high school students, studying William Shakespeare was akin to a kind of 16th-century torture.

The twists and turns of Shakespeare’s now-archaic English often remain at best frustrating obstacles to unlocking the Bard’s prose and poetry, and at worst tragic barriers to a good mark in English class.

But Crocus Plains Regional Secondary School teacher Cam Tataryn believes that Shakespeare, widely regarded as one of the English language’s greatest writers, needs to be accessible to everyone.

And his hope is that Brandon audiences will learn to love the Bard when he brings one of Shakespeare’s most beloved, popular — and accessible — plays to the stage this week, in Mecca Productions’ “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“I want to provide Brandon with a fun night out, potentially a good date night for whoever wants to do it,” Tataryn said moments before starting a class Monday afternoon. “And I really want people to lose that stigma that Shakespeare is something that their terrible English teacher made them hate.

“My job is to make a palatable, approachable, enjoyable show that changes what people think about Shakespeare and challenges some of those misconceptions.”

And more to the point, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is supposed to be fun. For anyone willing to buy a ticket to Thursday evening’s opening performance, Tataryn promises a lighthearted slapstick comedy full of magic and mischief, in what will be his directorial debut.

But no one should be daunted by the language, he said, as he wants the audience to see just how funny Shakespeare can be.

“The premise and the plot of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ is not that deep. It really is just a bunch of crude humour. It was made for the everyman back centuries ago to understand.”

The plot of the play is fairly simple.

Four Athenian lovers — Hermia, Lysander, Helena and Demetrius — run away to the forest only to get caught up in a husband and wife dispute between Oberon, the King of the Fairies, and his Queen Titania. Puck, the fairy, makes both of the Athenian boys fall in love with the same girl, and causes Titania to become infatuated with Nick Bottom, a weaver who Puck gives the head of an ass.

“The reason that he gets turned into an ass is that he’s a pompous ass, right?” said actor Eric Fjeldsted, who plays Nick Bottom for the Mecca production. “I get to have a lot of fun playing something that I hope that I’m not.”

While Fjeldsted has played other characters in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in previous productions, this is his first time playing Bottom. And he’s really looking forward to bringing the characters humour to the stage.

“Bottom the weaver is a very, very funny character, and his arc is totally ridiculous. And ‘Summer’ is kind of like one of those fanciful stories, almost like Shakespeare’s version of a stupid sitcom. Everybody’s getting love potioned up and it’s total ridiculousness.

“And in all that, I find that Bottom is kind of like the John Belushi of that crew. There’s lots of opportunity for great physical comedy.”

For those who want to revel in Shakespeare’s prose and poetry, and the artful mastery of the Bard’s rhyme and metre, you will not be disappointed. Michele Boudreau, who has taken on the role of Queen Titania, says that ‘Midsummer’ features all of Shakespeare’s funny sides, but also features some of his best writing.

“It’s a positive and fun, witty Shakespearean play, and I adore being the part of Titania, because she is nothing more than a strong character and a strong female leading character,” Boudreau said on Monday. “And it’s always a pleasure to get the opportunity to play a woman’s role that is very strong in her convictions.”

In the course of the play, the Queen’s husband, King Oberon, has Puck play a trick on her, giving her a flower potion that makes her fall in love with Bottom the weaver. And the visual spectacle of a fairy queen entertaining a mortal man with a donkey’s head is ripe for comedy. And for Boudreau, an actor’s dream.

“It’s an absolute riot getting punch drunk, you know, in love with a donkey, as an astute character who completely crumbles to the drug of the flower,” Boudreau said.

“And Eric is an excellent ass. He does a wonderful job as the donkey, and there’s a lot of electricity behind the acting on the stage during those scenes.”

For those planning to take in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” this week, Tataryn says he is very proud of the work that has gone into the costuming and the set design for the production.

“We just built it yesterday,” Tataryn said. “It’s really extravagant for all the things I’ve done before. Coming from an actor’s point of view, I really like when I have a playground to act on, when I have different levels, different little stages to climb, things to hide behind, all of that, and I think we’ve done a really good job of creating that on the stage.”

But the work of bringing Shakespeare to life on a Brandon stage is a labour of love for the Mecca Productions crew. It’s part of carrying on a Shakespearean tradition.

Fjeldsted, who has been acting for several years on stage, says there is a special pride that he takes being part of a group that’s there for the love of the craft.

And he wants the audience to walk out of the theatre at the end of the show with an even greater appreciation of what it means for Brandon to have that kind of dedication and love of craft in the people living in this city.

And if done well, a Shakespearean play is a great way to demonstrate local talents.

“That’s the thing about community theatre,” Fjeldsted said. “You do a show like this, where it’s just a bunch of like, school teachers and physiotherapists, and moms and parents who are getting together to do this for fun. The idea of a community coming together to just put on something because they want to.”

Mecca’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will run two evenings at the Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium on Thursday and Friday starting at 7:30 p.m., with a Saturday showing starting at 3 p.m.

Tickets are $36.75 for adults, $31.75 for seniors and students, and $26.75 for children 12 and under.

» mgoerzen@brandonsun.com

» Bluesky: @mattgoerzen.bsky.social