Prince Quince Robinson's Midsummer Ring of fire BY MEGAN GRUMBLING
	A Midsummer Night’s Dream By William Shakespeare | directed by Tim Robinson | Produced by the Players’ Ring, in Portsmouth, through June 26 | call 603.436.8123

In a sense, Tim Robinson can notch two directorial credits for the Players’ Ring’s current production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. First of all, he has commandeered the antics of all the actors portraying fairies and Athenians in various states of amorous unrest. And secondly, he dons black tights to take the stage as Peter Quince, amateur director of the "rude mechanicals" who rehearse Midsummer’s deliciously cumbersome play within a play. The parallel is both a fun in-joke and a winning nod to just how human — how eager, how imperfect, how earnest — are all these theatrical foibles.

Robinson’s Peter Quince is utterly classical, from his accent to his rough maroon garb to the nervous, crotchety affect of his bony frame, and likewise is his Midsummer a thoroughly conventional romp. That’s to say that you won’t find bicycles, flappers, Blade Runner-looking fairies, or anything else anachronistic in this production. The sprites cavort in greens, flowing fabric, and silk flora; the Athenians wear toga-like garments in bright colors; the workingmen of Quince’s troupe have their crude coveralls and black tights. No gimmicks. This might seem like the path of least resistance, directorially speaking, but it’s also a little ballsy — there are plenty of theatergoers who know Midsummer virtually by heart, and to keep them entertained without any weird innovations requires strenuous exercise of the play’s finest sinews.

The main currency of Midsummer is the lather into which fairy Puck (Kristan Raymond Robinson) and the sultry season can work the various mortals, and particularly the four love-addled teenagers. Here’s the romantic geometric: Hermia (Tana Sirois) loves Lysander (Camden Brown), who loves her back; Demetrius (Matthew Cost) also loves Hermia; and Hermia’s bosom friend Helena (Dinah Schultze) loves Demetrius. Complicating things further are Hermia’s father Egeus’s (Jeff Kaplan) love for Demetrius, and, later, the little purple love-flower that Puck applies to the wrong Athenian youth, thus mixing up everything.

As far as lather goes, Sirois and Schultze certainly go the rabid distance, and their wickedly funny catfight scene, once Helena is suddenly, inexplicably beloved by both men, is satisfyingly ferocious. The diminutive Sirois bounces off of nearly everything solid on stage, sentient and otherwise (honestly, is she made of rubber?), and rebounds against her taller friend in a blond flurry of abandon. The build-up to this scene is handled particularly well by Schultze, whose eager gazes yield to pinched sarcastic smiles, and then slowly unbraid into out-and-out outrage.

All four youths are at their best once circumstances have become sufficiently extreme to keep them from taking their angst too seriously. Before magic ups the ante, the pacing of the lovers’ plaints comes off as a bit too ponderous; it isn’t until some time into the play that the right consistency — light, quick, airy, frenetic — is achieved.

Generally, the mortals do pretty well once they reach their hectic kinesis. Where the stage could use more movement is in the realm of the fairies. As I see it, there are two things fairies should do well: 1) lounge around the glade, dripping with sensuality; and 2) flitter maniacally. Under Queen Titania (the fair and silk-voiced Ashley Love) Robinson’s lovely nymphs are luscious loungers of the highest order. Their limbs hang lazy and frond-like as they stroke each other’s locks. But when they’re called upright to do someone’s bidding, they often seem strangely planted in the ground, too much so for such lithe creatures. They should shimmer in their movements; they should make us mortals dizzy.

Kristan Raymond Robinson’s spry and giggly Puck does bound well about the stage, arching and wriggling her body in the pleasure of mischief. She’s also in humorously physical thrall to the powers of Oberon (Chris Curtis), and can be compelled in any direction by his merest gesture.

But by far the greatest treat of this Midsummer is Robinson’s Quince’s band of eager yokels. As the Bard wrote them, these folks are perhaps the most endearing and enduring representation of community theater ever. Big, brash Bottom (Kevin Riley) and shrunken old Flute (Thorpe Feidt) together make a flawless Pyramus and Thisbe. Feidt’s entrance as Thisbe, as he exclaims in falsetto and minces in with lightning-quick and impossibly small legs, is worth the price of admission.

Peter Quince directs some rough odds and ends where Tim Robinson directs actual seasoned actors, but in both directorial acts there’s an appealing candidness to both characters and actors, a very human susceptibility to mirth and whim.

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!" is Puck’s line as she watches the reap of the mischief she’s sown. This production, in both its enthusiasm and its imperfections, has the effect of including in Puck’s statement not just the smitten Athenians, but the Players’ Ring players, and its audience, too. What a lovely relief, and what a pleasure, to own up to it.

Megan Grumbling can be reached at mgrumbling@hotmail.com