TT: Playing it safe—and smart

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s productions of Pride and Prejudice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Here’s an excerpt.
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Now that America’s economic woes have forced regional theaters to play it as safely as possible, their artistic directors must grapple with a tough question: How to be both safe and stimulating? Florida’s Orlando Shakespeare Theater has responded to the challenge by offering its patrons a mini-season of rotating repertory in which two warhorses, “Pride and Prejudice” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and are being presented in smart, cliché-free stagings.
I confess to having previously gone out of my way to avoid stage versions of “Pride and Prejudice.” I love Jane Austen’s most popular novel (who doesn’t?), but it’s been adapted so many times in so many different media that I couldn’t see the point of yet another version. Moreover, I find that plays based on classic novels tend to be stiff and stagy. So I’m pleasantly surprised to report that Jon Jory has done a top-notch job of turning “Pride and Prejudice” into a play.
Mr. Jory, who founded Louisville’s Humana Festival of New American plays, adapted the novel in 2005, and since then his version has been performed throughout America. I can see why. While it requires a cast of 19, the scenic demands are modest–Orlando Shakespeare did the show with ten gilded chairs and a couple of footstools–and Mr. Jory has trimmed and shaped the book into a swift-moving script that gives directors plenty of room to maneuver. Thomas Ouellette’s light-footed, virtuosically coordinated staging flows as smoothly as a ballet and has just the right amount of comic crackle….
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is performed on the same unit set as “Pride and Prejudice,” a two-story country-house façade painted to look like a summer sky that overlooks a wide-open playing area. Not only is it acted by the same group of players, but both shows have been cast similarly. Michele Vazquez and Courtney Moors, for instance, play Elizabeth and Jane in “Pride and Prejudice” and Hermia and Helena in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” while Michael Daly does double duty as Mr. Collins and Bottom. This approach gives a strong feeling of unity to the season: You immediately see the artistic point of presenting the two shows in tandem.
On the other hand, the productions couldn’t be more different in tone. Whereas Mr. Ouellette’s “Pride and Prejudice” is crisp and classical, David Lee has deliberately emphasized the farce-like elements in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” staging the scenes for the four young lovers as a long, seamless arc of comic action whose propulsive physical energy I found exhilarating. Ms. Vazquez and Ms. Moors are wholly charming in “Pride and Prejudice,” but they really come into their own here. I don’t know when I’ve seen two such naturally gifted young stage comediennes…
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Read the whole thing here.