When a show’s cast welcomes the audience by dancing to Elvis Crespo’s merengue hit “Suavemente” and Beyoncé’s “Countdown,” as happened at the Tuesday performance of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Public Theater, you have to wonder where the play could possibly go. When the party needle is in the red right from the start, there’s a high risk the only way is down. But like a fair number of productions from the Public’s Mobile Unit, the show has a likable messy élan that compensates for many sins. The Mobile Unit, on the other hand, is the D.Y.I. (This fall the program went national for the first time with an 18-stop Midwest tour of Lynn Nottage’s “Sweat.”)The focus in this “Midsummer Night’s Dream” is decidedly on the play’s comic side, sacrificing the dreamlike atmosphere and the story’s bittersweet undercurrents in favor of speed and slapstick.

Source: New York Times November 03, 2018 01:45 UTC