By Kenneth Jones
04 Nov 2003

Daniel Breaker as Puck and Mark H. Dold as Oberon in The Shakespeare Theatre’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
photo by Richard Termine

The new Mark Lamos staging of A Midsummer Night's Dream begins Nov. 4 at The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC, continuing to Jan. 4, 2004.

Shakespeare's comedy-fantasia about lovers in the woods and the fairies who interfere features Daniel Breaker as Puck, David Sabin as Bottom, Mark H. Dold as Theseus and Oberon, Lisa Tharps as Hippolyta and Titania, Kate Nowlin as Helena, Paris Remillard as Lysander, Noel True as Hermia, Paul Whitthorne as Demetrius and Edward Gero as Peter Quince and Egeus.

Lamos said in notes, "Because Shakespeare was so influenced by Ovid and most particularly 'The Metamorphoses,' we have a play that is completely about change. One of Shakespeare's great themes, always in the comedies, is how our perceptions govern our acts and how our changing perceptions are almost never to be trusted. At the center of this production is a boy, a changeling boy. A changeling child is the ugly child that the fairies leave when they take away the pretty child. However, you sense Shakespeare doing something completely different with that word and the meaning of what this boy is. I felt strongly that this production should be about shadows and how this boy controls those shadows."

Lamos is former artistic director of Hartford Stage (1980-1997), and has directed 14 of Shakespeare's plays during his tenure, including Romeo and Juliet with Calista Flockhart, Hamlet and Richard III with Richard Thomas and Pericles with Angela Bassett.

He also directed a nine-play Ibsen cycle featuring Thomas in Peer Gynt, Sam Waterston and Cynthia Nixon in The Master Builder, Kathleen Chalfant and Richard Easton in Ghosts and Mary Layne in Hedda Gabler. Other highlights of his Hartford tenure include a cycle of Molière comedies and new plays and adaptations by Simon Gray, Tony Kushner, Peter Nichols, Lanford Wilson and Tom Stoppard. More than 20 of his productions transferred to New York, and in 1989, Lamos accepted the regional theatre Tony Award for Hartford Stage's body of work. In 1991, Lamos earned a Tony nomination for his direction of Our Country's Good on Broadway, where he also directed The Deep Blue Sea and The Gershwins' Fascinating Rhythm.

The play's "rustics" will be played by Edward Gero, Ryan Artzberger, John Livingstone Rolle, Greg Felden and Brad Waller.

The play also features Cecil Baldwin, James E. Bonilla, Jonathan Brathwaite, Chris Cantrell, Ravi Jain, Caleb Mayo, Timothy Sekk, Tyee Tilghman and Shawn Winslow Lyles.

Designers are Leiko Fuseya (set), Constance Hoffman (costume), Robert Wierzel (lighting), Martin Desjardins (sound). Seán Curran is choreographer.

Opening night is Nov. 10. The Shakespeare Theatre is at 450 7th St. NW, between D and E streets, just off Pennsylvania Avenue, between the Capitol and the White House.

For information, cal (202) 547-1122 or visit www.shakespearetheatre.org.