You heard correctly. New Village Arts, who has grown a mighty reputation in its first couple years since taking root up in Carlsbad, started their Free Shakespeare Festival last year with a one-weekend presentation of Much Ado About Nothing held at Carlsbad’s Stagecoach Park. This year it boasts two weekends of Midsummer. Eventually they are hoping to develop this into a full-blown Shakespeare Festival with several shows held over a month-long period. And they are off to a great start with that ambitious vision. The side of the hill overlooking the makeshift stage was packed, as it has been every night with as many as 500 people in attendance.

With shows of this quality, the crowds are just going to continue to grow larger. Under the direction of Kira Simring, an impressive cast fills this play with pure magic and fun. There’s the romance as the two young Athenian lovers Hermia (Jessica John) and Lysander (Joshua Everett Johnson) elope through the woods, chased by Hermia’s father-approved suitor Demetrius (Francis Gercke) who is himself chased by Helena (Kristianne Kurner) who desperately desires Demetrius. The romance takes some bewitching turns as the mischievous sprite Puck (Walter Murray) and the fairy king Oberon (Matt Scott) come across the four confused lovers who soon become more confused than ever before under the spell of the fairies. And then there is the crazy cast of amateur actors who go into the woods to rehearse their play and end up getting played with as they unwittingly stumble across Puck who is having way too much fun messing around with his “foolish mortals.”

Every actor, many of them double-cast, brings great insight to their character and feeds off of the others for a tremendous ensemble piece. The four young lovers vibrantly portray their parts with youthful and idealistic enthusiasm, Jessica John infusing the role of Hermia with youthful romance that becomes shock and anger when her youthful visions are crushed as her lover inexplicably falls for her friend Helena (Kristianne Kurner) who has a sudden, completely different, but just as painful reversal of fortunes under the spell of the fairies. George Flint is a frighteningly cold father who would rather see his daughter Hermia killed than have her marry someone other than who he chooses. Matt Scott and Jillian Frost are truly regal and powerful personalities as the king and queen of the fairy world, with Jillian charmingly transforming into a giggling schoolgirl when she is made to fall in love with a jackass. Their subordinate fairies are nicely drawn and distinctly individual.

And then we get to those crazy construction workers turned amateur actors. Daren Scott lands the most laughs as Bottom, the way-over-the-top lead actor who wants to take on every role in the play, but ends up becoming the butt of a cosmic joke when Bottom is turned into an ass and becomes, for one memorable night, the plaything of the fairy queen Titania (Jillian Frost). But the biggest laughs are still to come in the final scene that has the construction workers/amateur actors putting on their play for the royal wedding that features Daren’s riotously funny death scene (courtesy of a retractable knife), Joshua Everett Johnson as a melodramatic maiden who’s hair is already falling out (or off), a ferocious lion played by Snug (Jessica John) with a mane made out of strips of yellow caution tape, and Kristianne Kurner as the sexiest wall you’re likely to see (whom a drunken George Flint chases off the stage!).

Performs Through August 17, 2003.

Rob Hopper
San Diego Playbill