Thin Ice Theater's spring production for our youngest actors was Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Eileen, our director, created an abridged script, using The Bard's original words but only 45 minutes long.
I decided, after a very short thought process, to set the play in ancient Greece, according to the script. Oberon instructs Puck: "A sweet Athenian lady is in love with a disdainful youth. You will know him by the Athenian garments that he wears." And that's how Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius: "Weeds of Athens he doth wear," says Puck, as he anoints Lysander's eyes with the magic flower.
It always bothers me to hear those lines while the actors are dressed in full Elizabethan "weeds" or modern day clothes or whatever else the director has imagined. I'm just picky, I guess.
