Alyssa Abkowitz, The Wall Street Journal
June 12, 2014
Tim Robbins brings his Los Angeles production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ to Beijing and Shanghai.
Humor doesn’t always get lost in translation.
That is what Academy Award-winner and the Actors’ Gang ensemble founder Tim Robbins discovered while directing “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in China. “There’s so much heart in this play,” Mr. Robbins told the audience, who whistled and yelled “Bravo!” at the end of the opening-night performance. “I’m so thrilled and honored and blessed to hear you react this way.”
The L.A.-based the Actors’ Gang is the sole American theater company participating in the Shakespeare festival at Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA). After six performances in the capital city, the ensemble will stage four shows at Shanghai’s Zendai Himalayas Center.
On opening night, an audience of about 500 watched 14 actors perform “Midsummer” with no set and minimal props. The actors changed costumes on the sides of the stage—a decision that Mr. Robbins says he made to “strip away the artifice of theater.” Two large screens displaying Chinese subtitles flanked the stage. The audience laughed at the play’s modern touches, which include suits and tuxedos as costumes and actors donning 3-D glasses as part of a scene change. […continued]
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