An intricate love triangle, a magical fairy world, colorful costumes and whimsical dialogue all against the imposing backdrop of the Memorial Union: Bard in the Quad’s 20th season transported viewers into the world of William Shakespeare.
On opening night, audience members from all walks of life watched the classic Shakespeare comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” unfold as the summer evening turned into night under moonlight. A sea of picnic blankets gave life to the quad and the air was alive with the sound of laughter.
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” tells the story of the entanglement of four Athenian lovers, a group of amateur actors, and the magical world of the fairy king Oberon and his wife Titania.
“In our twenty years of Bard, this is our third time producing Midsummer,” director Elizabeth Helman said in an email, “and the story never gets old – comedy, magic, love, and mischief – it’s got everything!”
This year’s production met the classic story with a 1980s gothic and synth pop twist.
“Oberon was David Bowie in the ‘Labyrinth,’” Summer Poling, who played the fairy Mustardseed, said. “All of the fairies are based off of Cher. Titania is Cher in a wedding dress and I love it. And all the fairies are different … Cher outfits, like mine, the blue jumpsuit; it was an outfit she wore on one of her tours. And just everything is just big, bright, colorful 80s, but also Gothic, dark fantasy combined.”
According to Helman, the inspiration for this adaptation came from fantasy films like “The Dark Crystal,” “The Neverending Story” and “Legend” that she grew up watching.
“They’re so darkly magical and strange and have stuck with me since childhood,” Helman said. “Beyond that, 1980s pop artists like David Bowie, Annie Lennox, Madonna, Boy George, Prince, etc. play with gender presentation in an interesting way. I felt combining these elements would support our concept of gender exploration in an engaging and cohesive manner.”
Exploring gender roles was a key element of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” both in the classic Shakespeare comedy and in Helman’s adaptation.
“In a lot of ways I took inspiration from Shakespeare himself. Midsummer, like many other Shakespeare plays, fixates on themes of courtship practices, marriage, and sexuality which are intrinsically tied to gender roles,” Helman stated. “In this production, I wanted to push the idea further. … Conceptually, I first started focusing on the idea of gender and how people perform gender roles on the spectrum from the hyper feminine to the hyper masculine and everything in between.”
To explore gender, Helmen had most of the cast play two characters that act as gender counterparts to each other. For example, amongst the four lovers, each couple swaps bodies during the play: Hermia swaps with Lysander and Helena swaps with Demetrius.
“I think it’s really cool,” Poling said about the production’s approach to gender, “especially with everything going on in the world and the political climate of the U.S. right now. I think that emphasis on gender, … how it can change so easily and quickly, I think that’s something really important to highlight, but it’s also not something to be afraid of. People weren’t like, oh my gosh, I’m a man now, or I’m a girl now. They just embraced it because it’s who they were. And I think that’s something that we really need to highlight.”
While Bard in the Quad’s 2025 season has passed, the annual tradition is expected to be back next summer.
“I want people to come to Bard. … It’s something new every year. It’s something fun and fresh and exciting. You will never see the same show twice,” Poling said. “It’s so warming and welcoming. … We just really want to be able to share it with people.”
