A Midsummer Night's Dream is an excellent, humorous play written by Shakespeare. It is highly characteristic of Shakespeare, bringing several subplots into one masterful story. I have seen this play presented in a classical format and I found it thoroughly entertaining. Directed by Robin McKee, UNL's March 27th performance of Shakespeare's comedy was most definitely entertaining, but not because it was well done.
             I found the drama laughable, though the comedy did not come from Shakespeare's clever writings. In fact, the presentation of this play seemed to ignore much of the script's original wit and focused completely on a ludicrous setting. By setting the classical piece in the sixties, the audience's attention was diverted from the quality of the drama's phrasing. On top of these atrocities, the theme was inconsistent. Numerous "drugs" were consumed onstage, illustrating a sixties motif, but characters seemed to be dressed in either fifties drag with poodle skirts or they portrayed the discoing seventies in polyester suits.
             The idea of presenting this play in a setting more familiar to our generation was clever and introduced several new interpretations. For example, when the band of stoned actors are chased by beasts of the woods, their plight is intensified by the knowledge that they are extremely prone to paranoia due to the drugs they have been stoking all day. When one of the actors is turned into a donkey, there seems to be a fine line between reality and fantasy, a common problem accompanying drug use. These added touches do supply ample humor, though I noticed that the viewer who laughed in these instances seemed to identify a little to well.
             Finally, I felt that the acting in this play was marginal at best. While I enjoyed some of the characters, the strained verse of others became wearing. It is acceptable to change the environment of a play in order to give a worn out production a new twist. It ...