Summary 
Heavy metal rock-and-roll-saves-the-world modernization with the grunge and goth punk rockers of Oberon and Titania's fairy world contrasted against a thinly-developed cold-war political conflict between Theseus and Hippolyta. An excellent original musical score resounds with power-rock chords and the crash of drums. The nerdy lovers are reduced to underwear from gowns and suits and ties, and the centerpiece rock-video choreography is a crowd-pleasing delight.
Design
Directed by David Grindley. Designed by Jonathan Fensom. Lights by Michael Walton. Music by Rick Fox. Sound by Todd Charlton. Choreography by Dayna Tekatch.
Cast
Timothy D. Stickney (Theseus), Cara Ricketts (Hippolyta), John Innes (Egeus), Sophia Walker (Hermia), Ian Lake (Demetrius), Bruce Godfree (Lysander), Laura Condlin (Helena), Michael Spencer-Davis (Quince), Geraint Wyn Davies (Bottom), Dion Johnstone (Oberon), Yanna McIntosh (Titania), Tom Rooney (Puck).
Analysis
The actor portraying Quince takes the stage pre-performance before A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, encouraging the young school-aged audience at the Festival Theatre to post their comments and observations on Facebook and Twitter. He departs as the house lights fade and a distant bell tolls, autumnal leaves scattered across the darkening stage. In a tense modernization to cold-war Europe, Hippolyta scurries upstage 1.1 in a trench coat like a fleeing political refugee, and as a locomotive train thunders past, automatic gunfire rings out and she is arrested by military police officers led by Theseus. Hippolyta defiantly smokes a cigarette, crushing the butt beneath a high heel. This introductory scene, inventive and well-staged, presents a frighteningly modern glimpse into international politics that is never returned to by director David Grindley, who segues into a rather nerdy group of young lovers - Demetrius and Lysander in suits and ties, Demetrius' double-breasted like that of Egeus, and Hermia in an orange dress with long white gloves - hauled before the Duke. After Hipployta exits in a huff at the rebuff of youthful romance, Helena turns away from the smooching Hermia and Lysander with an exasperated sigh. The hempen homespuns present yet another thematic thread 1.2 - bumblingly inept would-be actors who are workmen by day, the tailor swilling from a thermos of coffee and the joiner gnawing a lunchtime sandwich - with an animated Bottom dejected at only having a single role in Pyramus and Thisby.
Grindley's vision for Midsummer suddenly coheres in the forest 2.1, a stunning and fully-realized heavy metal musical motif, as the Festival balcony collapses and crashes into the stage, creating a gaping and splintered hole in the wooden-slat flooring at center stage. Hammering guitars and banging drums crash in recurring hard rock-and-roll interludes. Titania's tattooed fairy struts across the stage in tight black pants, boots and a bustier, a smoky-eyed long-haired brunette wearing metal-studded wristbands. Her fellow punk-rock fairies seem like heavy-metal groupies in dark goth make-up, fishnet stockings and pieces of lingerie, echoing Avril Lavigne in tight pants and short shorts, black boots and high heels. Titania herself wears a black form-fitting, spaghetti-strapped dress with high-heeled boots. Amid the thundering original rock score, they confront rock-god Oberon and his band of grunge roadies, the King a guitar hero in black leather pants and jacket with chains and buckles as well as Elvis sunglasses. His crew sport baseball caps and cowboy hats a la Kid Rock or Pearl Jam - one in a Mohawk - plus a variety of denim and flannel, studded belts, and of course tattoos.
Grindley's focal character is Tom Rooney's memorable and ubiquitous punk Puck, frizzy-haired and wearing sunglasses like a 1960s mod or a 1970s punk-rocker, slithering across the stage in head-to-toe skin-tight black. Rooney's Puck is a young audience-pleasing punkish imp throughout the show, slipping Oberon's magical flower between his teeth then stuffing it down his pants, stealing one of Hermia's frilly pink bras from her luggage, and dancing a hip-swivel percussion rim-shot to punctuate a lewd joke. Rooney's Punk skulks onstage throughout the action, observing and taking part in the lovers' flight: he and his rock band toss snowflakes at the rehearsing mechanicals in 3.1; he blows out Quince's lighter every time the director tries to light his pipe; he shoots a water pistol to douse Demetrius' crotch in 3.2; and he uses a hand-held fog machine to obscure the quarreling boys in billows of stage smoke. The school-aged crowd erupts into spontaneous applause for Rooney's rebellious rock star, laughing as he holds out his arm to support the swooning Hermia in the forest, and delighting as he makes a surprise entrance from the fly, descending from above with his foot in the loop-end of a long rope.
Grindley's nerdy young lovers - like upper crust schoolyard socialites - get a thorough comeuppance from Puck and his insolent fringe cool cats. Helena skips gleefully in pursuit of the dweebish Demetrius, only to have piles of tree-leaves dropped upon her by Oberon. She crawls after her love like a spaniel, wagging her behind to entice him but failing, then rising to fling a shoe at him as he rushes offstage. Lysander carries Hermia into the forest on piggyback, lugging her over-stuffed nerd backpack before lustily watching her remove her stockings. Hermia dons a geeky pink eyeshade for her night's sleep after slapping Lysander's wandering hand from her hip. They disintegrate completely in the second act, Hermia tearing off Helena's dress 3.2 and the boys stripping to fight one another, then posing idiotically in supposedly heroic stances in their tightie-whitie underwear.
Bottom and the atrocious acting troupe also serve as foils for the hard-edged fairies in this rock-and-roll-saves-the-world vision of Midsummer. Wrenching power chords and searing guitar solos punctuate scene after scene, although the fairies' lullaby for Titania is a more melodic power ballad. Puck "translates" Geraint Wynn Davies' jovial Bottom with enormous false teeth - dress shoes secured to the sides of his head as donkey ears - and his hands hidden beneath long sleeves. Cobweb recoils at Bottom's apparently overwhelming body odor and another fairy, brandishing a tantalizing carrot, leaps on Bottom's back.
The reconciliation scene at 4.1 is Grindley's triumph, choreographed into an elaborate center stage dance with all the fairy world in synchronized boogie moves to thundering music as the audience spontaneously claps along to thumping guitar-heavy rhythms like a big-hair early-1980s MTV video. When the sleeping lovers are discovered, Lysander quickly conceals Hermia's undergarments in a pocket, and after Theseus suggests a triple-wedding, the moved Hippolyta gives him a sultry kiss full on the mouth. They exit and the stage re-constructs, the hole refilling with wooden slats and the balcony re-rising to its upright position. Davies' Bottom gleefully appears above 4.2, whispering animatedly for his fellow actors' attention and finding the big carrot stuffed into his coat.
Grindley's grunge Midsummer moves towards its conclusion with servants in black tuxedoes serving champagne and setting up pillows and blankets for the brides at positions downstage to observe the 5.1 performance of Pyramus and Thisby. Bottom, wearing strapped on chunks of ugly carpeting as chest armor and knee pads, leads the performance, an audience-pleasing disaster with the Wall placing his "chink: at crotch level so Pyramus and Thisby must bend to speak their lines into his groin and behind. The amusing if uncomfortably coarse physical humor delights the school-aged audience - the Man in the Moon carries a big lamp and pulls along a stuffed dog on wheels - and the slowly expiring Pyramus crawls to each couple to exclaim "Die!" before finally succumbing in a heaving wide-legged, face-up sprawl at center stage. Lysander rises to demurely place Bottom's shield over Pyramus' prominent crotch, and after an abbreviated bergomask ("hey!"), Puck reappears in a spotlight in the balcony. Rooney's concluding apology - with some of the lines taken by the newlywed couples in a nod to the reconciliation of fairy with human universes - ends the production with all rifts satisfactorily mended. The wedded couples exit upstage as Puck delivers the final lines from a crouch in the balcony, finishing to a rousing standing ovation from an appreciative young audience and amid the continued throb of an exhilaratingly powerhouse instrumental rock score.