A review of Alex Ekman’s US Premiere of “Midsummer’s Night Dream” Chicago, April 27,2018
“Midsummer night is not long, but it sets many cradles to rock.” An old Swedish proverb. Writing a short review of two hours of one man’s dream that morphs into hallucination would not do justice to the brilliance of Alex Ekman’s stunning re-imagination, more of a renewal, of Midsummer Night’s Dream. As I took my seat in the fourth row center of Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre I was confronted with a rustic iron single bed painted white cradling a handsome sleeping man, feet out of the covers, head tucked away in his slumber. Who knows how long this sleep has overtaken him before the anxious Joffrey Ballet audience began to fill the theatre…and fill it they did to standing room. Two small spots resting on the stage floor on the audience right skimmed under the bed throwing the first of Ekman’s creative shadows laterally across the floor projecting the raw frame to repeat on the wall. An imaginary alarm sounds and a hand reaches out of the eiderdown in an unsuccessful search …