EDFRINGE REVIEW: Midsummer! (CMU Center for New Work/Play On Shakespeare)

Midsummer! – ★★★★☆ – Vibrant

CMU Center for New Work & Play On Shakespeare
6-19 Aug
Review by Rebecca Mahar
 
Midsummer! from the Carnegie Mellon University Center for New Work in partnership with Play On Shakespeare is a slick, madcap, high-energy romp, filling the Bijou tent in St. Andrew Square with light and noise.
 
In Athens (aka, Golden Age Pittsburgh), Hermia and Lysander want to get married, but her father insists that she marry Demetrius— the erstwhile paramour of Hermia’s best friend, Helena, who is hopelessly in love with Demetrius. Hermia must declare her final choice on the wedding day of the wedding of Duke Theseus and his betrothed, Hippolyta, sending she and Lysander flying into the woods to escape, hotly pursued by both Demetrius and Helena. Meanwhile, a group of amateur actors are met in the woods to rehearse a play for the wedding, and it isn’t going terribly well. Unbeknownst to the mortals, these woods are the home of the fairy king and queen Operon and Titania and their followers, embroiled in a conflict of their own, and whose magic soon interferes with both lovers and mechanicals.

Jakai-Nyasia as Oberon and Logan Yao as Demetrius. Pic: Louis Stein.

Pitched as a “modern verse translation” of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Jeff Whitty, the script is less a “translation” than it is an ordinary cut of the show which has chosen rework some of its lines, often in simplified, jarring, and unsatisfying ways. What is the point, for instance, in making Puck say “I’ll circumnavigate the planet” rather than “I’ll put a girdle round about the earth”? And when the play is supposed to be set in Golden Age Pennsylvania, why is the script littered with twenty-first century jargon? Make up your mind, Midsummer!— if you want to be a modern translation, make the whole script your own, not just bits scattered among Shakespeare’s original work, and decide what era you live in.
 
Textual identity crisis aside, Midsummer! is an outstanding piece of theatre. The company of students from the CMU School of Drama all put in exceptional multi-roling performances, flitting from lovers to mechanicals to faeries to Athenian nobles and back again without ever fully leaving the stage. The production is directed with skill and precision by Kim Weild (assisted by Matthew Kereama), with essential depth contributed by choreographer & intimacy director Lucas Fedele and fight director Randy Kovitz. The visual of the world of the play is vibrant, saturated, and fantastically whimsical, each location and group of people well defined, a highly successful collaboration across design departments.

The mechanicals. Pic: Louis Stein.

The lovers are played with boundless energy and hairpin turns of allegiance by Celia Evans (Hermia), Christian Trimmingham (Lysander), Logan Yao (Demetrius), and Suri Noelle (Helena). Each of them also appears as one of the mechanicals led by Peter Quince (Von Nishan Markarian, swinging on in place of Moyo Ifafore), who has a delightful infatuation with Nick Bottom (the perfectly over the top Rusty Daniel). 
 
It's common for Theseus and Hippolyta to double as Oberon and Titania, but Midsummer! has made the clever choice to have Jakai-Nyasia double as Hippolyta and Oberon, her counterpart Siahvash Marshall appearing as Theseus and Titania. Rounding out the cast is Eli Strain as Puck and Philostrate, bringing bright-eyed mischief and an acrobatic bent to the fairy trickster.

Rusty Daniel as Bottom and Siahvash Marshall as Titania. Pic: Louis Stein.

Each member of the company has clearly put in the work with their text, handling both Shakespeare’s language and the modern reworkings and inventions with clarity, intent, and technical skill. Every one of them delivers detailed, distinct physical performances in the best tradition of suit the action to the word, the word to the action. The future of Shakespeare performance is bright with actors such as these rising to take their place on the professional boards.
 
Running time: One hour and thirty minutes with no interval
Venue: Bijou at Assembly @ St Andrew Square (Venue 172), St Andrew Square EH2 2AF
6-19 August 2026 (not 12)
Time: 12:30pm
Tickets: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/midsummer

Eli Strain as Puck and Jakai-Nyasia as Oberon. Pic: Louis Stein.


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