Giving the audience the whole nine yards!

The late summer shadows get longer, and may offend. But, think of this, and all is mended.

The newest idea for a production of the Shakespeare chestnut, A Midsummer Night’s Dream was to stage Puck and the gang in somebody’s back yard. Iain Moggach is director and producer of this independent effort, playing at 61 Park Street, starting Thursday, August 30.

Moggach is no stranger to, well, strange locations to show the Bard’s work to the world.

“There is something about Shakespeare being done in intimate and unique spaces that fits so naturally,” he tells Barrie Today. “It allows for more subtle, nuanced performances and provides incredible clarity to the text, which is critical for Shakespeare to capture modern audiences.”

For instance, Moggach has put on Romeo and Juliet in a Port Perry brewery, and The Tempest in a backyard in Toronto. “So when my partner and I moved to Barrie, we knew we wanted to do something like that up here. Unfortunately, the spaces in Barrie can be incredibly expensive and restrictive, but when we moved to where we are now, we knew we had found the perfect venue for us to bring that 'indie theatre' mentality here.”

Ian says such a staging provides a special challenge.  

“You need to build a vision that finds the balance between wanting to embrace the space for what it is, but also add elements that will enrich the experience for our audience.”

He adds Dream has not grown old in 400 years, for a variety of reasons.

First, “the fact that it is a fantastical love story, the rich and hilarious characters, and that there is so much room for interpretation that each production can be a completely unique experience. It also holds a special place in my heart because it was the first play I ever performed in back in Ottawa.”

And, in case you’re wondering, Nick Bottom, with the ass's head, is Moggach’s favourite character (played in the 1935 film version by Jimmy Cagney, by the way).

“He is a weaver in Athens who is part of a group of local tradesmen who decide to put on a play. He is one of the funniest characters because he is so earnest and keen and is bad with words sometimes.

"I relate to him a lot.”

Moggach then expands on this theme of Greek myths, another of Shakespeare’s influences.

“The way he handles the malleability of love, the blending of the fairy world with the human world, and even the location and names of the characters are all drawn from the Greek tradition.”

And there is much darkness underneath the comedy. For example, threatened with death or life as a nun, Hermia goes against her father's wishes and the law for love. Demetrius, at the end of the play, is still under the love potion and is forced to love someone whom he may or may not actually care for because Oberon felt bad for Helena.

What’s more, “Titania, the fairy queen, is put under a love potion in an act of revenge by her husband.”

“Now, Shakespeare does not give us much room in the script to question or challenge these moral qualms he posits to the audience. He also decided to frame it all as a comedy, with everything tying together nicely at the end of the show, but these problems are unavoidable when you peer below the surface.”

How it all comes together is for you to discover. Theatre-by-the-Bay’s backyard production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream runs Aug. 30 through Sept. 8.

To learn more, click here.

EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version incorrectly stated this production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is a Theatre By the Bay production. In fact, it is an independent production