Michael Yeargan's effective sets for this production, which opened its run at the New York State Theater on Saturday evening, also contribute to the general air of menace.
The Technicolor set of this production is promising; so is the fusion of harpsichord and synthesizer that plays between acts.
Andromache Chalfant's set for this production, which opened on Thursday night at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, certainly seems to evoke that time.
First let it be said that the setting for this production, by the Woodshed Collective, is lovely, and that the word "free" in front of "theater" is a wonderful thing.
The setting for this production, which kicks off its summer run this weekend, is an outdoor amphitheater in Palo Duro Canyon, the second-largest canyon in the United States after the Grand Canyon.
"We hope that as he finds his footing on stage, the machine will be kind to him, too," Mr. Gelb added, referring to the mishap-prone, 45-ton mechanism of movable planks that constitutes the set for this production.
While the enchanted side of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is given rather short shrift by Mr. Watson's boisterous staging, the energetic performances and the natural loveliness of the outdoor setting lend this production considerable appeal.
Designed by Scott Pask to suggest an abandoned speakeasy, filled with stacked chairs and ownerless instruments, the set for this production is definitely somewhere you could imagine a lonely man in a fedora stumbling in, hoping to order one for the road.
(It's a store that sells perfume along with fancy toiletries, and Allen Moyer's gorgeous set for this production might as well be open for business at the Wallis' fancy Beverly Hills digs).
Also, the set that dominates this production, an intriguing, starkly modern staging by the British director Tim Albery that is filled with militaristic imagery, may have made it harder for the performers to follow the conductor and hear the orchestra.
