Audition to be a Power Player

Feb 13-15
The Colonial Theatre, Laconia

PLAY OVERVIEW

The play opens to the sounds of banjo, fiddle, and mandolin harmonizing on a classic American folk song as the audience is transported to Athens… Louisiana (which is a real place!).

Spanish moss and wisteria sway above the stage. Kudzu and bougainvillea tangle their way up the set. It is July on the Delta. The Gulf coast. The bayou. And as anyone who has lived below the Mason-Dixon Line can attest, summer in the South is a force of nature. Heat buzzes in the air. Unseen creatures click and hiss in the trees and reeds all around. The sun seers. Fickle winds deliver cooling breezes one moment and invoke cloudy darkness the next. A storm is always brewing. And the wetlands come to life.

In our play, Theseus, an old-money, Southern patriarch, is staging a shotgun wedding to a visibly pregnant Hippolyta. As music plays over the opening action, the cast manifests a world where culture, class, and climate collide. All the while, Theseus lords over the nuptial preparations - micromanaging the food, furnishings, and fashion yet paying little attention to the rumbling signals of approaching rain. Philostrate, Theseus’s faithful attendant, will soon be revealed as Puck in disguise, a subversive interloper between the human and fairy worlds.

The wealthy Egeus is also on hand with his daughter Hermia. Lysander and Helena, looking sharp in their uniform vests and bowties, hustle about as members of the hampered catering crew. And a team of Rude Mechanicals fumble their way through the setup of a wedding canopy and trellis, festive lighting, and a tricky dress fitting for Hippolyta. Lysander and Helena both steal fleeting private moments with Hermia whenever Egeus is engaged with Theseus, who dictates every detail with the fussy air of a man studied in the age-old art of getting exactly what he wants. 

When a well-dressed Demetrius enters, it’s clear he is a youth being shaped by Theseus and Egeus into the very model of a modern Southern gentleman, whether he likes it or not. The young man’s glances between both Helena and Hermia indicate that he is more than a little torn over the class-crossing match he desires deep down and the traditional, high-society marriage being arranged for him.

As the play proceeds, the spirits of the “swampsemble” bring the natural environment to life with sticks, flashlights, singing, chanting, and, of course, movement and dance. They are flora and fauna. Humidity and mud. Shadowy figures of local lore. Saving spirits of the eternal earth.

At the end of the play, the young couples are married after a performance by the Rude Mechanicals. The wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta, however, is interrupted by the thunderous announcement of an imminent deluge. Chaos ensues as the assembled parties flee the scene. All except Philostrate, who has been officiating the ceremony. Abandoned at the altar by her self-absorbed fiancé, Hippolyta finally sheds the restrictive wedding wardrobe Theseus selected for her. For the first time in the play, she controls her next steps. The feeling of freedom is liberating and unsettling.

During the closing speech of the play, Puck also sheds their wedding garb, revealing their true identity as the notorious Robin Goodfellow. Exchanging the bride’s bouquet for an enchanted flower (laden, we know, with love potion), the mischievous fairy invites Hippolyta to follow them into the woods. As the ominous meteorological atmosphere mounts and the stage darkens, Puck leads a song that Hippolyta (and eventually the entire swampsemble) joins. Behind a leafy veil, the portal to the spirit wilderness glows beckoningly, conjured by the magical music. Hippolyta makes her choice and vanishes into the protective greenery of the forest.

As lights fade, we hear the hurricane erupt at last.