Cupid is Armed and Dangerous…

Every 30 years or so we are treated to a new iteration of Shakespeare’s classic romance, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Beginning in 1935, directed by Max Reinhardt with a cast including Olivia DeHavilland and Jimmy Cagney, the show was golden on the silver screen and was lauded as an astounding Shakespeare adaptation. In 1968, director Peter Hall had his go at the Bard’s work in a production featuring the Dames’ Judy Dench and Helen Mirren in a well-received CBS television special. And most recently, the 1999 adaptation by director Michael Hoffman features a star-studded cast of television and film actors, including Rupert Everett, Calista Flockhart, Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Stanley Tucci to name a few. The film however received mixed reviews, with some criticizing Hoffman for taking artistic liberties in changing the setting from the traditional Athens to Provincial Italy, and for casting actors with no previous Shakespearean experience in leading roles. I found Michael Hoffman’s adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to be entertaining, well-directed, and cast in a way that simplifies the viewers identity of the characters; I believe the film will however serve suitably as a vessel to bring Shakespeare to the living rooms of the masses for the next twenty years in continuing with the tradition.

As the action unfolds in a forest over the course of one long night, the goings-on of the færie world spill over to the moral realm, confusing the relationships of four young people. As the king and queen of the færies, Oberon (Everett) and Titania (Pfeiffer) fight over a changeling boy. When Titania refuses to yield to Oberon, the færie king resorts to trickery to fulfill his desires. Oberon instructs his mischievous elf Puck ...

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... the visual opulence and dedication to Shakespeare’s original words to satisfy any tried and true Shakespeare fan, and the tasteful application of special effects and dynamic staging for any un-discovered Shakespeare fan follow the action and characters. This version of the tale of A Midsummer Night’s Dream fits well in the sequence of movie versions, and just as the previous versions serve as time capsules, this latest version will be a lasting example of the talent and technology available to us at the turn of the century. I predict this movie will continue to enchant fans, and torture high-school students for at least the next 20 years, that is, until a director sometime around 2020 decides to remake the movie featuring starlets of the time, perhaps Miley Cyrus and a CGI William Shakespeare himself, to continue the tradition. After all, a true classic never dies.