Reviews 2008
Reviews 2008
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by Paul Dunn, directed by Michael Shamata
Studio 180, Tarragon Theatre Extra Space, Toronto
October 1-19, 2008
Paul Dunn’s Offensive Shadows is partly a commentary on and partly a sequel to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Tedious at only 90 minutes, the play’s three parts hammer home Dunn’s single, unoriginal theme that in the modern world the magic is gone.
In the play’s first third a skater-boy-like Puck (Andrew Kushnir) retells the entire plot of Shakespeare’s play in a modern, expletive-filled idiom as if Dunn thinks humour will spring from the contrast between subject matter and style. Puck believes “the magic died” just after the action of Dream for two reasons. First, he alleges that Oberon and Titania soon divorced leading to the dissolution of the fairy kingdom. Then he claims that Theseus’ statement, “I never may believe / These antique fables, nor these fairy toys” (V.i.) suddenly gained widespread credence and is to blame mankind’s present belief in science over magic. Dunn wants to have it both ways, but should make up his mind which factor is more important.
Having heard the plot once, Dunn forces us relive it again in the actions of the four lovers, this time ordinary modern Canadian teenagers, sans magic. It’s true that the partner-switching of Demetrius (Jason Mitchell), Lysander (Mark McGrinder), Helena (Jessica Greenberg) and Hermia (Kimwun Perehinec) can be explained by the effects of booze, drugs and raging hormones, but so what? The end is the same and the process is not as fun. As if the point still had not sunk in, Dunn has the four reunite in the forest five years after their marriages to reveal that none of them is happy.
To tell /re-enact a familiar story three times in succession is a sure way to boredom. There are tensions in Shakespeare’s text but Dunn merely highlights these in bright yellow. His main contribution is his fanciful and unconvincing tale of Oberon’s decline. Nevertheless, the production is well cast with especially good work from Kushnir as a world-weary immortal and Perehinec as the ultimate hypersensitive virgin. Michael Walton’s varied and inventive lighting of what is basically a bare stage is also impressive. Sadly, Dunn is no Tom Stoppard or Ann-Marie MacDonald to embroider gold on the margins of the Bard. Shakespeare’s Puck tells us “If we shadows have offended, / Think but this and all is mended” (V.i.)--“this” being that all has been a dream. Modern folk still do dream, an inconvenient truth that Dunn’s cynical view deliberately ignores.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2008-10-02.
Photo: Mark McGrinder, Kimwun Perehinec, Jessica Greenberg and Jason Mitchell. ©John Karastamatis.
2008-10-02
Offensive Shadows