Text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2016
Images from the Internet
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Adapted (from William Shakespeare), directed and edited by Richard
Griffin
Scorpio Films Releasing
104 minutes / 2017
If you are yet unfamiliar with Rhode
Island indie director Richard Griffin, well, you have some homework ahead of
you. A critic’s darling and a fan’s friend, he has dipped his director’s stylus
into various genres, mostly stuff that Hitchcock might approve (e.g., 2013’s Normal or 2011’s Exhumed). Sure many of his titles can fall into the horror genre
(or meta-horror subgenre), but by crossing the streams of the likes of Hammer,
Italian giallo, revenge, Christian
scare films and even a redneck creature feature, but he has declared he is a
director that is not tied to any single idea or style. Griffin got his start
with Shakespeare with Titus Andronicus
back in 2000, so this play seems like a good place to bring it back home.
Of all Shakespeare’s plays, this one
is the goofiest. That’s saying a lot, actually, considering he has
cross-dressers, mix-ups and general mayhem in his comedies. Just look at some
of the names of characters here: Peaseblossom, Snout, Nick Bottom, Francis
Flute, Mustardseed (you just know
that has Biblical reference), and of course, Puck.
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| Add caption |
There have also been many, many adaptations of the story over the
years, including one with a young Mickey Rooney as a manic and bare-chested Puck.
As with nearly all Shakespeare’s works, the language is poetic from another
era, so yes, it’s hard to keep it sounding conversational, but like the more
serious Hamlet (whose presence is
also felt here) this story of a play within the play is told nearly as a whim,
a story to tell before going to bed, a dream on a midsummer night (didja see
what I did there?).
But this is Richard Griffin, whose
films are gloriously known for their style of gender-bending, and sexual
orientation being a mere thing to be trifled with within the story. And over the
years, Griffin has proven that he is fearless in this way. Also, as many have
before him, he has taken the story out of the original play’s time period of Ancient
Greece, and placed it in 1754, in the fictional town of Athens, in the British
Colony of Massachusetts.
The text is abridged a bit, but
loyal. That stated, I will make some commentary about the text as well as the
film as we go along our merry way. For example, the elder Egeus (Bruce Church)
is angered that his daughter, Hermina (Ashley Harmon) has fallen in love with
someone that he has not chosen. Rather than singing “Tradition,” like Tevye, and
bending with the times, instead he asks the ruler, Theseus (the noble Steve O’Broin)
for permission to either kill or disfigure her if she disobeys. Yikes. Did you
know Shakespeare dealt in Honor Killings?
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| Anna Rizzo (not from this film) |
Griffin also subtly plays up the
lines that meant one thing when it was written, and then uses modern
terminology to imply other things. For example, the King of the Fairies (get
it), Oberon, is supposedly in love with Hippolyta (Lee Rush), the person about
to marry Theseus, but he is surrounded by pretty boys, as his bride, the highly
corseted Titania (Anna Rizzo), states that he has been, “Playing on pipes of
corn and versing love / To amorous Philida.” And when vexed-yet-comic Helena (Elizabeth
Loranth) is distraught with Hermina, thinking she’s being Gaslighted, remind her of years before when they “…Have with our
needles created both one flower, / Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
/ Both warbling of one song, both in one key.”
This is definitely one of the more often
filmed comedies of Shakespeare (at least four in 2016 alone), and it’s arguably
the most filled with sexual tension, naughty bits, and innuendos (for example, a
guy named Bottom who is an ass, turns into, well, an ass; great donkey head
created by Jason Harrison, by the way). But Griffin being Griffin, he takes
something that’s been done before, and manages to add some new sparkle to the
whole thing. A lot of this is the cross-gender moments, some of which I mentioned
above.
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| The play within the play |
But mostly it’s a lighthearted play,
despite the anger, the wrestling, the threats of physical harm to women, and
sexual animosity between some of the key characters that appear sporadically. This
is also reflected in this production via an obvious-stage setting for much of
it, the primary-colored lighting supplied by Jill Poisson, and the hand-held
cameras, which is thankfully never exploited to the point of seasickness for
the viewer. This whimsicality (well, hell, there are fairies in these woods) is also expressed via purposeful and
humorous anachronisms that show up occasionally, such as the eating of popcorn
out of a clear glass bowl (yes, I know they had popcorn back then, the settlers
being introduced to it by the indigenous people they were appropriating land
from, but here it’s more of its temporal contextual
use). There’s also the breaking of the fourth wall as characters speak to
the camera/viewer, and in a Jesus Christ
Superstar (1973) moment, we see the dressing rooms and even some cell
phones; and yet, it does not spoil the moment, but rather enhances it, since it
is on some level a meta-play story.
As for the acting, well, considering
the clunkiness of speaking Shakespeare’s dialog, the range is from Community
Theater to some exceptionally fine work. For example both the fairy leads,
Rizzo and especially Platt put in some stellar performances (see clip at the
end). Josh Fontaine, as Nick Bottom, plays it a bit broad, but because the
character is so full of bravado and ego (maybe he can play Trump next?), he
actually metes it out at the right proportion for the role, and his monologue towards
the end shows this.
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| Johnny Sederquist as a Steam-Puck |
The character that is the most
central and known in the play is, of course, Robin Goodfellow, who is most
commonly known as Puck. He is both the glue that holds the story together, and
also who rips it apart through misadventure. He’s snarky (such as his famous
line, “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”), impetuous and also a bit of a Loki
archetype – with charm. I believe that the success or fail of this play is
dependent on the interpretation of Puck. Playing him as a steam-punk (including
the “circle-A” tee), with just-the-right-touch of glee, is the person I was
hoping would do the part, as he is often in Griffin’s releases, is Johnny Sederquist.
In the wrong hands Puck can be seen as capricious, manic, or even mean. Johnny
just nails it.
The language of Shakespeare
intimidates many, tis true, but when you have someone at the helm who loves the
work, and is willing to put his own stamp on it without mucking it up (e.g., I
once saw Hamlet on Broadway with Ralph
Fiennes in the title role, where they did the entire play, speaking quickly throughout due to length of time; it
was like watching a 33-1/3 being played in 45). Griffin shows here that even
with a meager budget, a dedicated troupe of regulars and newbies to his
releases, and some ballsy direction (and some fine editing, I might add), he
can make Shakespeare palatable to even the casually educated.
Extra clip:
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