Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: FREE: A Midsummer Night's Dream (9/3)

Friday, September 1, 2023

FREE: A Midsummer Night's Dream (9/3)

Ashley Wells, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Fairy Queen Tatiana (John Simmons)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare [or the guy who really wrote it, namely, Edward de Vere*] runs at 7:00 pm Sunday, Sept. 3, 2023.

Join the Independent Shakespeare Company at Griffith Park (near the old zoo, above the old merry-go-round) for a wild and joyous night of laughs that features live music and more than a few surprises.

Author (de Vere Society Australia)

The mortal and the magical (human and fairy) are intertwined in Shakespeare’s most intoxicating comedy. As the fairy king and queen battle, four young Athenian lovers go on the run, and a group of hilarious amateur actors (including Bottom) prepare for the biggest performance of their lives.

Final week of performances (8/30-9/3)

Stage set up in Griffth Park (iscla.org)

Free Shakespeare in the Park, under the rare Super Blue Moon, enjoy the classic source of all sitcom humor, the ancient and poetic "A Midsummer Night's Dream.

"It's a play-within-a-play in two worlds, as four star crossed human lovers struggle to be with the person they love, while mystic fairies in the forest create mischief, mirth, and amusements for themselves toying with mortals and their youthful lust and romantic pursuits.

Secret Messiah (Joseph Atwill)
WHAT'S THIS PLAY ABOUT? One prince loves a princess, but he's Black, so the Latino dad doesn't want him to marry his white daughter. He wants her to marry the Latin guy. But that Latin lover had sex with another princess, the first princess' best friend, and now she's all whipped on the handsome Latin guy. Meanwhile, working class British dummies are rehearsing to do a play, but this one guy named Bottom (the ass), keeps stealing the show. He gets the most laughs. The fairy people are doing magic, spells, love potions, and witchcraft, messing up the humans' plans. The play inside the play is about two hot young people, Pyramus and Thisbe, in love trying to hook up but separated by a wall until they decide to run off together. But there's a misunderstanding and some suicide, though it's just a play. There's still a real world a dreamy world of spirits, who are also very real in their own kingdom.
A Midsummer Night's Dream (Wiki)

Diverse crowds in Los Angeles (iscla.org)

The fairies have troubles of their own. The Fairy King Oberon wants a Buddhist/Hindu boy from India, who's in the care of the Fairy Queen Titania and will do anything to get him, even use his fairy servant Puck (played by this funny young punk rock girl with a mohawk) to get him some flower potion, which placed in the eye causes any person to fall in love with the next person one sees.

What to bring to the park for a good time

So the fairy queen is made to fall in love with a transformed human turned into an ass (one of the players rehearsing in the forest), and one lover falls in love with another's love by the misuse of the love potion.

Meanwhile, the King of Athens Theseus prepares to wed a foreign princess, Hippolyta, who's unhappy as he sides with a father trying to boss his beautiful daughter around and telling her who to marry. That's as good a summary as any. RSVP FREE: