“By My Troth, I am Sexy and I Knoweth It” or Shakespeare Re-imagined

As mentioned before, one of Dr. Ryken’s greatest dream for the program was to see A Midsummer’s Night Dream” in Regent’s Park on a beautiful night in midsummer.  We were unable to buy tickets until the day of at 2:00 PM.  As a whole, we all looked forward to what promised to be a magical evening.

            It started rather rough, as the three of us who toured Kensington were too late to go with Dr. Ryken and the group to the park.  We rushed to catch up with them, and we thought all was lost at the Baker Street Stop as it was the time to meet the group and no one could give us directions to the outdoor theatre.  In the nick of time, Dr. Ryken appeared out of the blue.  Bless his soul; he had been waiting for us.  We then joined the group, but we all got turned around and barely made the performance on time.  After running to my seat to make the 7:45 show time, I sat down and took in my surroundings.  I was in… a construction zone in a trailer park? What? Is this Shakespeare? People were milling about dressed in trailer trash clothing and yelling at each other, flirting with each other, and cleaning.  I asked those around me if the play had started, and I was assured it had.

            Finally, the opening lines of Shakespeare were spoken, but the trailer park stayed.  The play was set in a modern day gypsy scene (apparently this is very similar to TLC’s My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding TV show), but the original Shakespearean English was used.  The mechanicals were construction workers (Bottom wore a shirt that said: “Kiss My Ass” which was a nice touch since he turns into a donkey), Hippolyta was played up as an abused woman, the four lovers were gypsy teenagers, the fairy queen was more on the sexual side, and Puck rode a bicycle. 

            Obviously, this was not what we expected.  We all turned periodically throughout the show to see Dr. Ryken’s reaction.  During intermission he gave us his opinion: “Cheap and tawdry.”  It was only the beginning however.  The second half of the show really delivered, especially during the wedding scene.  All the married couples are dancing nicely to some cute oldies song when all of a sudden the music changes and we hear: “When I walk on by the girls be looking like damn he’s fly…”.  Yes they danced to LMFAO’s “I’m Sexy and I Know It”.  I kept thinking: “Is this real life? Did they really just put that in a Shakespeare play? Is Shakespeare rolling in his grave or would he approve of this? After all he had some ‘cheap and tawdry’ jokes in his plays.” The mechanicals performed their play to a ukulele and used “Eye of the Tiger” for the lion’s roar.  They then did a hip-hop remix dance that included the “All the Single Ladies” dance and ended with “Time of My Life” and Bottom almost attempting Baby’s famous jump.  At the end, Hippolyta runs off with the Mechanicals and after bows we all exited while the Dolly Parton song “Jolene” played.  Whether or not this was true Shakespeare, it was high entertainment. Which after all, is the job of the play, whether or not “these shadow