Article Title: Adamant about Shakespeare

Edition: August 2001
Category: Horizons
Author: Nat Frothingham
Article:

Sometimes a simple question has a deliciously simple answer.

When The Bridge asked Rosann Hickey why she decided to direct a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at Adamant Music School's Quarry Works Theatre this summer, she said simply, "I picked it because I liked it."

Rosann went on to say that she and others at the Music School wanted to try some Shakespeare at Adamant because they wanted to challenge the all-too-common assumption that Shakespeare is risky, difficult and inaccessible.

In picking a play about the haps and mishaps of two pairs of teenage lovers who escape the city to wander for a night in the forest, Rosann believes she has hit arguably on the one Shakespearean play more than all others that you'd go to see if you'd never seen any Shakespeare before.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is certainly about the trials and tribulations of two pairs of teenage lovers lost in the woods. But as Rosann pointed out it's infinitely more than that.

Shakespeare understood the layered complexity of Elizabethan society with its monarchs and princes, lords and ladies, middle management types and plain, common folk. And one reason she believes A Midsummer Night's Dream has had such enduring popularity is that it has something for everyone.

Step back in time 400 years.

If you were a royal personage seated upstairs in the gallery of Shakespeare's theater, you would have enjoyed watching the royalty in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

If you were a middle management type in Shakespeare's day, you would derive pleasure from watching the middle management types in this play.

If you were just another common fellow standing with the crowd in the pit of London's Globe Theater with the other groundlings you would have laughed at the antic fooling of the rough band of rude mechanicals -- the carpenters, tailors, pipefitters and other journeymen -- who also appear in this play.

Rosann feels that A Midsummer Night's Dream enjoys an almost universal appeal today and in the past because we can see ourselves (whoever we are) in the story and on the stage.

Rosann is bubbling over with excitement about the production that is now coming together. "It's howlingly funny on all kinds of levels," she said.

Rosann was introduced to theater as a child and holds a degree in Speech, Theater and Communications from Trenton University in New Jersey. For the past 15 years she has been able to make a living in Vermont as an actor, director and teacher. She speaks about Vermont with genuine affection and says of her adopted state, "I'm never going to leave."

Now, after working with children in Vermont schools for several years, she finds herself in the unusual position of being able to cast two of the teenage lovers in this production from actors she has worked with since they were 6 or 7 years old. She is thrilled about the rest of her acting troupe as well and she expressed special pleasure in being able to work with Montpelier area resident and actor Robert Nuner who plays Bottom in this show.

It's hard to imagine A Midsummer Night's Dream without music, and in the person of Sonia Dunbar, Rosann has found a wonderfully versatile musician. In this production Sonia plays the lute and two recorders.

So what if A Midsummer Night's Dream has been performed over and over again both locally and beyond.

Said Rosann about her own show now in rehearsal, "The magic is that every production is different."

(A Midsummer Night's Dream will be performed at the Quarry Works Theatre on the grounds of the Adamant Music School (Friday, Saturday & Sunday) August 10 to 12 at 7:30 p.m. There will be a matinee performance on Saturday, August 11 at 1:00 p.m. Admission to the Quarry Works performances is free. There are about 50 seats in the Theatre. Numbers for available seats are distributed an hour before the performance begins and the doors of the Theatre open a half an hour before showtime. For further information call 229-9297.)

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