SOURCE: Weber, Bruce. “The Once Dreamy Woods Now Have Big, Bad Wolves.” The New York Times (28 June 2002): B3; E3.

In the following review of the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2002 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Richard Jones, Weber notes that Jones's unique and nightmarish take on the play created a kind of “anti-Midsummer Night's Dream” that confounded expectations.

School's out, which is a good thing as far as the Royal Shakespeare Company's new production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is concerned. We wouldn't want any unsuspecting English teachers shepherding their sophomores into the Shubert Theater here in anticipation of the gentle, giddy introduction to Shakespeare that has seduced generations. They'd all be perplexed by a production that seems to be willfully unattractive, drained of color and demonic in spirit, as opposed to magical. Of course, 10th graders might very well get a charge out of the...