This ‘Dream’ delights in darkness

Director Julia Whitworth knows the dark crannies of William Shakespeare’s plays the way Stonington’s fishermen recognize, even in the thickest of fogs, the most dangerous nooks of the town’s coastal waters.

Whitworth, who is studying to be an Episcopal priest, understands, as the Bard did, that underneath the laughter and mirth that human beings emit, there often lurks a malevolent soul.

So, it is not surprising that the director who set “The Taming of the Shrew” in a women’s prison illuminates the shadows of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” with a bright and, sometimes, disturbing light.

Considered by many a director to be a madcap romp in fairyland, Shakespeare’s comedy at the Stonington Opera House be-comes something more under Whitworth’s direction.

This is not glum production. Bottom the Weaver’s death scene still sets the standard for ham actors everywhere. Helena and Hermia again square off in Act II in a catfight that never fails to amuse. Once again, true love wins out over arranged marriage.

Yet, Whitworth’s Oberon and Puck, respectively, behave more like Tony Soprano and one of his henchmen than a fairy king and his feisty sprite. And Theseus is a king who claims Hippolyta as a spoil of war rather than a woman wooed by love.

Actors Stephanie Dodd, Rebecca Hart, Tommy Piper and Mark Watson do double duty portraying the young lovers and the mechanicals — the troupe of amateur actors who seek to entertain the king. The quartet, works together as if they’ve been plucking these characters’ strings for many years making lovely melodies.

Dodd as Helena is ferociously enchanting. Her love for Demetrius is joyfully boundless. The actress sparkles in the part as if she were a creature of the night and not the day.

Much is demanded of Piper in his dual roles of Demetrius and Bottom. The actor makes these men the flip sides of the same coin, adding an interesting dimension to the young lover not brought out in other productions.

Piper’s Bottom is hysterical in the unending death scene and his delight at being turned into an ass adored by the Fairy Queen Titania — in a lovely performance by Melody Bates — is wondrous to behold. It is, however, the subtle way the actor as Demetrius hints at Bottom’s bombast — which, in turn, lives at the bottom of the young lover’s soul — that lifts his performance above his cast members’ portrayals.

It could be the shaved head and bushy moustache that give Jason Guy’s Puck the demeanor of a gangster. It could be the way Jeffrey Frace as his master the Fairy King barks orders at him. Whatever it is, Guy’s Puck is not the mischievous, impish pixie portrayed in most productions of “Midsummer.” This is one malevolent elf. Yet it is through Guy’s almost menacing performance that Whitworth’s dark-against-light vision is most realized.

The set by Ray Neufeld is warm and welcoming. The lush, green backdrop full of dark, leafy greens seductively draws the audience into the action onstage. The vertical poles allow the actors to hang almost suspended in the air as if defying gravity and reality. The lighting design by Shannon Zura makes everything on stage sparkle, the way sunlight causes rain-soaked leaves to glisten.

Costume designer Jennifer Parr dresses the young lovers in white-and-blue outfits trimmed in red reminiscent of military school uniforms. It is a constant reminder of just how young these young lovers are. They don dark jumpsuits as the troupe of workmen turned actors that makes their many quick changes possible. The opulence of the kings and queens, be they fairy or mortal, is dazzling.

Sarah Pickett’s music is an integral part of the production. It is so unobtrusive a score that the audience at times cannot distinguish its sound from the dialogue until the actors’ fall silent. Yet, without Pickett’s music, the director would not have been able to sustain the tone that must underlie the play to make her point.

It is a dense forest into which Whitworth leads her cast and audience. It is a tour, however, that startles and delights even as it causes theatergoers to question how tightly the bonds of love and marriage bind them.

While many theater companies in Maine send audiences home with a new appreciation of the Bard’s work, Opera House Arts is the only one that consistently sends them into the foggy night thinking, questioning and rethinking Shakespeare’s canon.