Don't miss: "Fairy Queen" at Rutgers is an opulent and odd production
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
"The wigs alone are worth the price of admission."
In the 400-plus years since its first performance, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream has been a frequent source of artistic reinvention – operas, plays, ballets, films and more have been fashioned from it. One of the most intriguing adaptations is Henry Purcell's The Fairy Queen, a peculiar hybrid – part truncated version of Shakespeare's play, part opera/ballet/masque entertainment.
Due to its size, scope, and general oddness, Fairy Queen is rarely done. But this weekend, the Rutgers-Camden Theater and Music programs join forces for three performances (Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m.). At the helm are two Rutgers professors who also have notable professional careers – director Kenneth Elliott, and music director, the renowned soprano, Julianne Baird.
I saw the show on Thursday, and promise that you'll be astonished at the scale and sumptuousness of the event (the wigs alone are worth the price of admission!). An appropriately youthful cast is especially good in the more raucous comic moments of Shakespeare's play (the Pyramus and Thisbe sequence pretty much never fails, but here it's especially charming), and the musical interludes are ravishing – Purcell's score is not merely a song here and there, but a fully-formed work of its own. (By the way, if you go, pay special attention to the top line of the chorus – it's unmistakably the beautiful voice of Baird herself.)
If you worry that it will all be too long and unwieldy, I can happily report that Fairy Queen is around two and a half hours that goes by much faster. That's not just my opinion – at the matinee, a theater-full of visiting high school kids were rapt in admiration. (Why can't Broadway audiences be this well-behaved?)
Through April 27, $7-$12, The Walter K. Gordon Theater, Rutgers University Camden, 314 Linden St., Camden, N.J. 08102. http://finearts.camden.rutgers.edu/theater-program/production-season/
