Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream by Wm Shakespeare (2014) conceived and directed by Julie Taymor Performed on the Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage at Polonsky Shakespeare Center, Brooklyn, New York.  Kino Lorber Video  Recoded from the DVD edition  



Run time 2 hours 25 mins

                                                                                    Presented in two Parts at interval

                                                                                     Subtitles: English only available

                                                                                            selectable in your player.

IMDb number  tt3812730



Directed for the stage and screen by Julie Taymor.

Cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto



Cast:



Kathryn Hunter                 Puck

David Harewood                        Oberon

Tina Benko                                   Titania

Max Casella                         Nick Bottom

Jake Horowitz                         Lysander

Robert Langdon Lloyd              Lord Egeus

Mandi Masden                             Helena

Okwui Okpokwasili                    Queen Hippolyta



Summary



 Adaptation of the Shakespeare play, filmed during a stage performance: "This immersive and darkly poetic cinematic experience brings the play's iconic fairies, spells and hallucinatory lovers to life ... the feats of visual imagination are ingenious and plentiful, but beating at the center of the film is an emotionally moving take on the deeper human aspects of Shakespeare's beloved tale"--Container.



 'Once a year, there is a day of midsummer madness, that Shakespeare was riffing off of, when all our worlds are topsy-turvy, and what happens in the realm of shadow and dream, alters and distorts the everyday world, which seems so ordinary."



My Notes



  A bravura production by Julie Taymor of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream from a live 2014 season only recently released to dvd.  Eye-popping is not an exaggeration.

Other Taymor productions for the stage are "The Lion King" and Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera (also on DVD).



  The dvd is available and there are some extras with that.  I encourage libraries and schools to get these for the theatre craft as much as for the acting that this displays.    Support the DVD where and when you can.



Notes written April 22,  2017



 Updated notes June 27th, 2020