It is often said in real estate that the key to a good sale is location, location, location. Whether or not that is true of theatre, particularly Shakespearean theatre, is debatable. In the past fifty years in particular, Shakespearean production has been defined by the dispensability of time and place. This is not to say that location is unimportant to twentieth- and twenty-first-century directors; indeed it is often crucial to their conceptualizations of the plays. The location, however, that is most significant to these productions is not the one that was written into the text, but the new one assigned to it by the director’s concept. Perhaps the thought remains that Verona, Padua, Denmark and England are foreign to contemporary audiences (particularly American) ones and their culture/history will not resonate.

This type of thinking in part has fueled the concept behind a Georgia production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In this incarnation, the play’s setting of Athens, Greece is reimagined as Athens, Georgia. The show has even peppered the script with local references to support this switch. This practice is far from new; in fact, several hundred years ago, it was quite common for “local color” (i.e. regional landmarks) to be incorporated into the scenery of a show regardless of the play’s setting. Now, I’m sure this is just intended for a few cute jokes to allow the production to wink at the audience. Still, I wonder how the mythological motifs of this Dream will come off in Georgia as opposed to Greece.

Miley Cyrus is just about everywhere. If she’s not dominating record sales charts or selling out all of her tour dates, she’s topping the North American box office with her concert film. In short, she’s a teenage megastar, and she’s already managed to land herself in her first major scandal at the young age of fifteen. If you’ve been catatonic or in some other blissful location where Inside Edition can’t reach you, you might not be aware of the Photograph Seen Around the World. In a recent magazine photo shoot, the Achy Breaky spawn posed provocatively in a bedsheet—a move some of criticized in light of her age. The inevitable cycle of spin, apologies and finger-pointing has followed, all of it somehow sadly predictable. Ms. Cyrus, her stardom, and her suspiciously well-timed scandal are very much of the moment (if you don’t believe me, check back in five years when she and Hilary Duff will be on the same VH1 “Where Are They Now?” special). This makes name-dropping her in a classic play all the more curious. Georgia Shakespeare is currently staging the madcap farce The Servant of Two Masters. Since the play is translated, pop-culture references have been strewn throughout, including a shout-out to the sheet-wrapped pop tart. Why? I’m trying to imagine the same kind of adjustments being made to one of The Bard’s plays. Can you imagine if, in the middle of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Helena said, “Lysander, knowest thou not when to stop? Thou acts as Miley when she lost her top!” For both Midsummer and Servant, there is plenty of humor to be had without pillaging the tabloids.

Bollywood is the new Kabuki. For directors looking for inspiration from other cultures, India has taken a prominent place in the theatrical works of directors looking to create a multicultural take on classic plays. A new version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream adopts the subcontinent as its setting and features many actors speaking in languages from the part of the world. This kind of approach invites a variety of responses: praise from those who applaud the artists’ broadening of their audiences’ horizons (not to mention their own) and rebukes from those who see such productions as a kind of neo-imperialist appropriation of other cultures.

In an interview, the director of this production, noted how misconceived many productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream are. Among his laments were the passionless portrayal of the young lovers and lip-service renderings of the Kings and Queens. For him, the play needs darkness and danger as well as majesty and a real sense of magic. Certainly, he has a point regarding the potential for blueprinting an innocuous paint-by-numbers version of the play. To play devil’s advocate, though, is it not possible that eventually the dark, multicultural approach could get old, too? In ten years, could we be rolling our eyes lamenting yet another Midsummer set in a foreign locale? It seems the core of this play is keeping the love, magic, and mystery vital and urgent. If that works, then so will any artistic concept a production applies to it.

The Guthrie is performing the Shakespearean comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream with both seasoned actors and relative novices. What is even more noteworthy is the decidedly dark take on the play. The director has envisioned this Midsummer in a post 9/11 world. For him, this is a play about the dark side of adolescence. In his own words, “the forest is malignant.” This production is not simply about four youths who lose their way; it is about the deliberate forces that threaten to destroy them. An argument can be made in favor of this approach. After all, the four innocents are rather cruelly manipulated by the spirits of the forest. A few more ill-conceived machinations and the action could end far more tragically. To underscore this, the director has included a very prominent military motif, as if this Dream is in the midst of a police state.

The question with this approach is, “Does it play against the text?” Is it being performed more “seriously” because the play evokes this tone or because of the pursuit of artistic novelty? Shakespeare is certainly not the only author to have his comedies interpreted edgily. Still, there are those who believe (whether rightly or wrongly) that the comedies should be light and frothy and the tragedies somber and heavy. Given that The Bard’s later plays delved into mixing genres, however, perhaps we can see evidence of this inclination in his earlier works. Is Shakespeare’s Dream really a nightmare?

In music, remixes never die. In fact, some songs only get air play when someone else gets their hands on it and revamps the material, adding vocals, beats or other elements. We live in a self-referential age, so even songs that don’t “sample” earlier works often refer to them lyrically or mirror them melodically. Theatre is a different animal. For the most part, if you take even part of someone’s play and rework it, the results tend to be criticized as plagiarism rather than celebrated as innovations. A related idea is the mash-up, wherein two pieces are combined almost equally (rather than simply having a new work sample an old one). In this format, the idea of commentary is clearer because the two pieces share relatively equal focus.

A new children’s production has effectively created a Shakespearean mash-up. Tempest in a Dream is, as you might have guessed, an integration of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest. The result is that the framework of the latter sets up the love quadrangle of the former. It’s an interesting concept as both plays deal with magic and the attempts of those who conjure to change fate. For example, in this version, the enchanted Titania falls for Caliban instead of a donkey. Also, both plays can be interpreted both lightly and darkly depending on the bent of the director and acting company. The result may not be a new play, per se, but it invites the viewers to change how they think about the originals.

The eighties often get a bad rap. While people love to be nostalgic about the sixties and seventies (particularly the films and music those periods generated), the eighties do not rate the same critical and popular respect. In many ways, the entire decade is viewed as one big Desperate Housewives episode: fun, pretty to look at it, but lacking in depth. For those of us who carry a torch for the era when rock music and hair products went hand in hand, the minor 80’s renaissance of the last year has been something of a vindication.

The extent of this renaissance can be evidenced by a middle school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that’s been restaged in the Me Decade. Not only is the hair big and the color neon, but the director has chosen specific pop-culture icons to match certain characters. As a result, this Midsummer features a cast of characters that includes Billy Idol and The Boss. It’s an apropos concept for a play with just the right amount of excess (magic, mixed-up lovers, a talking ass, etc.). The fact that this production is being staged at a middle school is rather ironic since none of its cast was even born during the period depicted. Their entire experience of the decade is through media, making this 1980’s Midsummer a “period” piece for them. For their parents, it will probably make them smile knowingly….and feel incredibly old.

If you’ve never seen the 1989 comedy-drama Parenthood, you might have trouble appreciating this latest Shakespearean tidbit. The film (which, incidentally, is quite good) follows the familial woes of four siblings, their spouses, and their children. One of these fathers is none other than Rick Moranis, the go-to geek in 1980’s films. His character is obsessed with turning his daughter into a genius, and makes her study, gives her flashcards and drills her on vocab, despite the fact that she’s just three years old. The film plays this obsessive parenting for laughs, the intellectual answer to 1980’s competitive culture.

A recent news item noted that students as young as four should study Shakespeare, and I wondered how seriously I should take the idea. On a simple level, it’s great to encourage interest in literature, the arts, and Shakespeare in particular early on—exactly how early, though, is the question. How much can even the brightest of four year-olds get from Will’s plays? Could they even read the Cliff’s Notes versions of the m? Also, which ones would be the most appropriate to teach them? I’m trying to imagine selling this idea to parents who get skittish about the dark tones of the later Harry Potter books: Which would you prefer your four-year old read? A comedy that includes bestiality (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) or a drama with witches, beheadings and murdered families (Macbeth)? Suddenly, Mr. Moranis’s need to make his toddler learn French seems tame by comparison.

A recent write-up on the Bath Shakespeare Festival revealed an unusual trend: performing The Bard’s works with fewer and fewer actors. Productions mentioned include a two-person Hamlet and a four-person A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This approach is a nod to several tactics of theatre past. In Shakespeare’s time, bit parts and supernumeraries were multiply cast. After all, theatre was a business venture, so why pay a separate actor for each small part, when they could double, triple or even quadruple up?

The idea dates back even further than Shakespeare. In Ancient Greece, drama was initially performed by two, and then three, actors. While there could be many characters in a given play, no more than two or three of them would occupy the stage at the same time. This would allow the actors to make a simple alteration of costume or mask to assume a new persona.

Yet these traditions have a different impact on the audience today. Despite efforts by the actor or costumer, it is hard not to notice when an actor plays more than one part in a play, no matter how small the roles. The aforementioned productions acknowledge that possible response by taking the idea even further. Not only is it impossible not to notice when only four people are enacting A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the production team seems to want you to notice. Despite any proclamations about honoring the play, this really an experiment in acting virtuosity. Whether or not the play is lost in the shuffle ultimately depends on how good the actors in question really are.

Does everything really go with coffee? A recent item that caught my eye was tauting Shakespeare with a “scoop of coffee.” My immediate reaction was that some theatre or Shakespeare Festival was installing a Starbucks or a Seattle’s Best in their theatre. The idea isn’t so ridiculous. After all, we’re living in the age where any place can become a mall. Got some shopping to do? Go to the airport. Need a latte? Get it at your local grocery store. Cross-selling is apparently the wave of the future.
In this case, the article is merely noting a coffee clatch about Shakespeare. It sounds perfectly lovely, but I couldn’t help wondering if there was some kind of corporate coffee tie-in. If theatre and industry merged, I wondered how far the idea might be taken. On television and in movies, product placement has become a way to generate revenue. Could theatre adopt a similar strategy? What would it be like to see The Bard redone as a coffee commercial?

Imagine The Merchant of Venezuela, wherein Shylock becomes a South American coffe vendor, or A Midsummer Night’s Cream and Sugar, wherein a group of young baristas are beset by magical spirits. For tragedy, they might present Mochabeth with a Lady M. who’s out to take over “Duncan Donuts.” It might sound farfetched, but since people are always lamenting that the theatre is about to die, corporate sponsorship might be the way to put it on life support.

It’s almost time. Men will be dashing to drug stores and supermarkets to pick up last minute gifts, cards and other sundries. Women will begin their collective eye-rolling at this panic, marveling how “the most romantic day of the year” still manages to take their mates by surprise year after year. Despite Valentine’s Day’s commercial veneer, many just want to feel special about the someone special in their lives. While the “Be Mine” heart-shaped candies and ubiquity of the color red in stores leave little doubt that the day has been largely consumed by commercialization, the day still manages to make people reflect on their relationships. Regardless of age, race, culture or orientation, couples must pick a side on Valentine’s Day, either for it or against it—and woe to the couple whose partners are not on the same side.

If overpriced chocolates, flowers and stationery are not your thing, the Orient Express’s British Pullman is offering a romantic dinner ride with Shakespeare a la carte. Scenes from his comedies (no doubt with an emphasis on romantic ones) will be presented by members of the Oxford Shakespeare Coompany. Instead of listening to Celine Dion or light jazz, adventurous romantics can take in samples of A Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It. If you’ve every endured your significant other’s maladroit attempts at poetry (seriously, should the word “hot” ever appear in a poem), you may welcome the reprieve this unique entertainment offers. Who knows? Maybe Two Gentlemen of Verona’s aptly named character Valentine might even make an appearance.