A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Location, Tickets, Reviews
Julie Taymor, the endlessly inventive magician of the theater, returns to the New York stage with Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the inaugural production of Theatre for a New Audience’s new home in Brooklyn.
The first production in a sleek new theater should feel celebratory, seminal, or at least alive. At times, this Midsummer is all of these things, usually when Taymor (of Lion King fame and Spider-Man infamy) fills the stage with her astonishing visual genius. But when the technical delights recede, her game cast slogs mechanically through Shakespeare’s festive verse.
The result is three hours of stop-and-go, as typical Taymor wonders abound and arrest the eye, but the mischievous, sexy core of the Bard’s comedy struggles to find it’s way through the pomp and puppetry. The critics largely acknowledge Shakespeare’s text takes a backseat to Taymor’s theatrics, but they don’t seem to mind. For them – and maybe for you – the phantasmagoria of visual delight is more than enough.
Recommended if…
You love brilliant theatrical design but don’t care so much for all that “drama”;
You always thought Shakespeare could use more flying contortionists, intense body makeup, and armies of fairy children; OR
You want to join the kickoff party and welcome a beautiful, ambitious, new theater venue to New York.
LOCATION
Theatre for A New Audience at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center
262 Ashland Place
Brooklyn
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RUNNING TIME
3 hours, 1 intermission
TICKETS
$53.00 – $85.00 (click here for tickets)
DATES
Performances through January 12th, 2014
NEWS & REVIEWS
Reviews
New York Times
When the Sky Is No Limit
New York Post
Julie Taymor Storm Back with ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’
Newsday
Julie Taymore brings magic to Brooklyn
New York Magazine
After Julie Taymor’s superhero nightmare, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’
New York Theater
At the end of the nearly three-hour production, one might leave the theater thinking: Who knew there is such a thing as being too creative?
TheaterMania
Julie Taymor breaks in Theatre for a New Audience’s new home with this stunningly beautiful and wickedly funny new production.
Hollywood Reporter
Julie Taymor rekindles her artistic flame with Shakespeare’s comedy of mismatched lovers, the director’s first New York Stage project since ‘Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark’
The L Magazine
Has Julie Taymor Redeemed Herself After Spider-Man?
Village Voice
Bill Thrill: Julie Taymor Dazzles You Into Shakespeare’s Web
News
New York Times
After the Dark, the Dream
CAST & CREW
(partial list)
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Julie Taymor
Featuring Max Casella, David Harewood, and Kathryn Hunter