Asolo Conservatory’s outdoor Shakespeare is a dream

You have to be a little wary of seeing a production of a Shakespeare play with an all-student cast. The density of Shakespearean language and the stylistic distinctiveness of his writing can trip up even the professionals. Most students, even those at prestigious programs such as the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training, have a lot of difficulty with Shakespeare.

You could see that last year, when the conservatory staged an inventive production of “Macbeth.” The staging was intriguing, but several of the actors just didn’t have the chops for it.

All that makes the conservatory’s current show, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” an especially pleasant surprise. The cast is large, 15 people, and almost without exception the actors are up to the daunting challenge of Shakespeare’s most often-produced play. The performances are often clever and inventive, veering from conventional interpretations, and simply a lot of fun to watch.

There’s a lot more than just the acting that makes this production special, though. It’s the first time that the conservatory has staged Shakespeare outdoors at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota, and the setting enhances the magic of the play.

The play, just in case you don’t know, has several interweaving story threads. There’s a royal marriage, a love quadrangle (Hermia loves Lysander, but she’s betrothed to Demetrius, with whom her friend Helena is in love), a group of really bad actors who are trying to put on a play, and a group of generally well-meaning but somewhat mischievous fairies who happen to be in the woods where all the other stories come together.

It’s often very funny and very easy to grasp, even for people who find Shakespeare difficult.

The “theater” for this production has the audience in raked seating facing a small stage in front of a pond, with an island at the far end of the pond. The island seems too far away to figure into the action, but director Jonathan Epstein starts to incorporate it subtly by having fairies flit silently across it with Becki Leigh’s iridescent costumes just barely catching the audience’s eye.

The production is performed without amplification, and the student cast performs it audibly without seeming to yell. You have to imagine that director Epstein’s extensive history with outdoor Shakespeare, both as a performer and as a director, is largely responsible for that.

Among the most impressive performances come from Andrew Bosworth as Puck (he also takes the much less flashy role of Egeus), Anthony J. Hamilton as Oberon (he’s also Theseus) and Kedren Spencer as Bottom.

The only real problems are a couple of dance numbers with contemporary music that just plain don’t work, and the fact that the play is too long. It’s edited from the original (as virtually all Shakespeare, and it clocks in at a reasonable two-and-a-half hours counting intermission, but it feels as though it drags on past its ending). The more interesting plot lines are tied up and all that’s left is the intentionally awful performance by the amateur theater group. You’re ready to go home after a great evening of theater and you have to sit through a bad short play.

It’s totally worth it, though. Epstein is hoping to make an outdoor Shakespeare production an annual tradition for the Asolo Conservatory and Selby Gardens, and this production is a wonderful start to something that could add a delightful component to Sarasota’s theater scene.

Details: Through April 29, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, 900 S. Palm Ave., Sarasota. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 10:30 a.m. Sunday, April 23. $27 general, $21.50 military, $13.50 students under age 25. 941-351-8000, asolorep.org.

This story was originally published April 21, 2017 at 3:21 PM with the headline "Asolo Conservatory’s outdoor Shakespeare is a dream."