Summary 
A dark adaptation of a Hungarian conception of the play, with malevolent woodland spirits learning valuable love lessons from comparatively simplistic humans. Angry and mean-spirited, at times unpleasant but almost always interesting, played against a palette of checkered green and black.
Design
Directed by Laszlo Marton. Lights by T.J. Gerckens. Costumes by Jordan Ross. Set by Todd Rosenthal. Fights by Robin McFarquhar. Original music by Gabor Presser.
Cast
Lisa Dodson (Hippolyta/Titania), Michael Chaban (Theseus/Oberon), Scott Parkinson (Puck), Duane Sharp (Egeus), Carey Peters (Hermia), Luke Wilkins (Lysander), Frank Zotter (Demetrius), Wendi Weber (Helena), Brad Mott (Peter Quince), Matt DeCaro (Bottom).
Analysis
Court Theatre's A Midsummer Night's Dream is derived from director Laszlo Marton's Budapest production, which ran for seven years at the Vigszinhaz Theatre. Marton inverts the play's usual lesson of the fairy world creatures exposing the folly of the foolish mortals. Instead, Marton's mean-spirited spirits - especially the short-tempered and selfish Oberon and the rebellious and sensual Titania - learn about the nature of love from their human counterparts.
Marton focuses on polarities of fairy/human and male/female relationships, even in the scenic design. Marton adorns Court's thrusting stage with a multitude of large and overstuffed silk pillows, lush green on one side and shiny black on the other. A metallic catwalk spans the upstage width, and the entire set is minimally lit, with emphasis on darkness and moving shadows.
The malevolent Puck, replete with an omnipresent series of derisive sneers, snarls, and scowls, represents the central character in Marton's vision, and he stands center-stage as the play begins, at the end of its first act, and as it concludes. He opens the reordered play with his 2.1 scene, and he resembles a Mick Jagger-like, leather-clad punk rocker, attired in a sleeveless black vest, red velvet pants and cap, and knee-high boots. The ugly rather than impish Puck shows pride in his self-acclaimed spirit, which crosses the line from merely mischievous to being vicious and dangerous. His interaction with the soap-bubble-blowing Mustardseed is nothing less than sexual assault, with the pink-wigged fairy defending her virtue with one of the pillows.
The remaining fairies subsequently join Puck onstage, emerging from within the pillows as if peas from pods, and the decidedly female spirits resemble the Spice Girls: spiked hair of various florescent colors; patched and tattered bell-bottoms; and wide-eyed expressiveness. Puck assumes his role as evil agent for the brooding Oberon, who abuses him as much as Puck abuses the fairies. Oberon makes his first appearance in a slow descent upon the mechanical upstage catwalk, which is emblazoned with strings of tiny white lights. The bare-chested Oberon brutalizes Puck with ill-tempered shouts, insults, and threats of violence, and early in the second act he grabs Puck by the scruff of the neck and savagely drives him face down into the pillows.
Oberon's relationship with Titania is similarly repellent. The fairy King and Queen treat each with distaste and distrust during their vindictive games, and the red-gowned, slinking Titania exudes an unbridled sensuality that intensifies Oberon's hyper-jealousy. Oberon's "trick" of having the raven-haired Titania fall in love with an ass is presented as more an act of cruelty than a teaching of a lesson or as a means to an end; their competition over the changeling boy plays as just another way for them to hurt one another.
The humans in Marton's topsy-turvy Dream are portrayed as energetic dolts, very much the lighter side of the equation. Theseus and Hippolyta, regal in manner and both wearing pristine white, behave with natural courtesy. If, in comparison to the spirits, the younger humans seem vacuous and unsophisticated, they are also innocent and far more kind. The courtly lovers are sweetly naïve, and the rude mechanicals are dimwitted and rustic. The lightheartedness comes as welcome comic relief - and relief in general - from the unrelenting malevolence of Puck's sadistic world.
The lovers, brightly lit in white and shades of yellow, are portrayed as cloyingly cute, almost joyous in their romantic unhappiness. Lysander wears lavender, and a pony-tailed Demetrius is attired in blue with a collegiate scarf. Helena and Hermia wear bright dresses of an elegance that does not belie the simplicity of their clothing or their characters. Their crushes on one another can seem quite inane, but here, due to the darkness of contrast with the spiritual world, the lovers manage to charm. For example, when Lysander removes Helena's boot and stocking to relieve her distress from walking in the woods, he lapses into a cooing spate of kisses that borders on a comic foot fetish, and she drives him away by beating him with a pillow.
A burly Bottom in beret and vest leads the homespuns, including a chunky Quince, a doddering Starvling, and a rail-thin Flute with bed-head hair and boots but no socks. After he is "translated," Bottom appears in hooves and antlers that are green and black, like the huge pillows scattered across the stage. A purring Titania embraces him with unrestrained carnality, crawling between his feet, caressing his enormous paunch after stripping him of his shirt, then massaging him with her legs. When the fairies spirit the bewitched Bottom upstage to lie upon a large rug, they have comic trouble lifting and carrying his great weight. Puck wraps Bottom and Titania together in the rug, and he breaks one of the pillows open, so feathers fly - literally and figuratively - as the first act comes to its end.
At times he behaves with indifference, but Puck's more characteristic malice is evidenced by his scornful treatment of the lovers and rustics. He uses harsh finger-snaps and curt waves to make them fall asleep, and, constantly onstage, he mocks and mimics them throughout the 3.2 confusion. Puck applauds one of Demetrius' caustic comments to Helena, then hands her a pillow with which to strike him; he imitates their voices to enrage them against each other; and he amuses himself with the bedeviled Helena, repeatedly passing a hand in front of her face to make her smile then frown: "lord, what fools these mortals be."
Puck's malicious influence pervades the lovers. Under Puck's spell, delivered with a red pen-light, a gymnastic Lysander behaves with callous disregard to Hermia, who literally - and comically - clings to his every movement. Moments later, Lysander and Demetrius catch Hermia in mid-air as she leaps in anger at Helena, and then they gesture with her limbs to make their own verbal points before burying her beneath a pile of pillows.
Marton uses the doubling - Titania with Hippolyta, Oberon with Theseus - to good effect. The line between mortal and immortal blurs for the audience because there is no differentiation between the Duke and his wife and the King and Queen of the Fairy kingdom. Bottom, when taking the stage in the play within the play, gives an exaggerated and telling double take when he first sees Hippolyta, sensing her true identity.
The production concludes after the young lovers inadvertently pair off with the wrong mates then correct themselves. Oberon and Titania reconcile, then remove their dark robes to expose the white attire of Theseus and Hippolyta - revealing themselves to be their earthly counterparts. Puck's disapproval is apparent, but he is whisked out of sight upon the rising catwalk, although he of course returns for the final "if we shadows have offended" speech - an apology delivered without remorse, quite appropriately, at least for Marton's vision of Puck.
Court's A Midsummer Night's Dream certainly succeeds in its intention, although it becomes difficult to enjoy such unlikable spirit-world characters. The darkness and malevolence of tone are less entertaining, although more disturbing - and admittedly more interesting - than a standard issue Midsummer's Night. Trouble is, the play works best as a romantic entertainment.
Note: A version of this article was edited and published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol.17, No.2, Spring 1999.