‘Midsummer’ fascinating if not necessarily successful

Director John Beane has hit on an interesting idea in the Insurgo Movement's "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

Shakespeare's play is thought of as a light, romantic fantasy. Two couples escape the confines of the court and head for the woods, where they come under the spell of fairies and the power of their libidos.

Beane turns the text into a midsummer night's nightmare. The costumes suggest Greek warriors, cavemen, modern American military, German fascism, fetish-shop kink. The images often are stark, the action brutal and wrapped in the attitude of an out-of-control Visconti movie.

Beane has made the lovers' desires dangerous rather than charmingly naive. Amidst the gas masks and handcuffs and rapes you get the feeling the characters' physical desires are on the verge of destroying the world.

Beane has a knack for stunning visual imagery and urgent pacing. He creates one amazing stage picture after the other.

The problem is, the production often feels as if it's about nothing more than images. In the original script, the fantasies get under way when the lovers enter the forest. There's a sharp contrast between the restraints of reality and the mystic freedoms of a mysterious land.

Here, the "dream" begins with the first scene, and it never lets up. You never quite understand what's going on. For example: A group of what we might call today uneducated blue-collar workers, puts on a terrible play for the court, and one man, Flute (the likable J.J. Gatesman), plays a woman lamenting the death of her lover. Bean has Flute remove his woman's wig in mid-speech and become very sincere and skillful in the delivery of his speech. It's nice, but it makes no sense. Why would he take his wig off? Why would this character, who's supposed to be a terrible actor, suddenly become skilled?

Beane often sacrifices the logic of the overall action for the fun of an individual moment, and it's not fair to excuse all this by noting that it's all about a dream. Even dreams have subtextual sense.

There's at least one professional-level performance in the person of Paul Besterman as Puck, a chief fairy whom the actor makes mischievous, boisterous, manipulative, self-absorbed, but ultimately loyal and harmless. He's a delightfully devious child/man with a Fellini face always worth reading.

Technical values (including Michael Morris' creatively simple set grounded in netted platforms) are surprisingly first-rate, and there are several unexpected interludes of inspired movement (choreographed by Beane and the cast).

I can't call this a successful show, but it is a fascinating one, rich in possibilities.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at DelValle@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.