Diane and Jeff – or Pino and Raz as they were known by their stage names – were the stars of the New Pickle Family Circus. We started playing with ideas of how to utilize their circus talents to help make the story of A Midsummer Night’s Dream come to life. 

Several other Pickle performers were enlisted: Serenity Smith Forchion and Alysia Gavre-Wareham, a pair of aerialists, became trapeze-twirling fairies. 

Aidan O’Shea and Jamie Adkins, a pair of Pickle gymnasts, were enlisted to join the crew of mechanicals who, along with Bottom, put on the play of Pyramus and Thisbe, which is always the highlight of this production. 

These wonderful performers did astonishing flips and twists as they were chased through the enchanted forest by Puck’s magic – while Puck cavorted all over Bottom. 

The final Bergomask dance, often cut from productions, became a tour-de-force exhibition of clowning skills, one last bit of magic at the end of an extraordinary evening. 


The non-clowning actors also shone. Mary Knoll and Peter Meyers both debuted with Marin Shakespeare in this production, as Titania/Hippolyta and Oberon/Theseus.

And we were charmed to bring back to the Forest Meadows stage the original Marin Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director (1961- 1972), John Brebner, who played an appropriately paternal Egeus.

 

(Continued..)