fringe: a midsummer knight's dream... what?

Sometimes you see a Fringe show where there are only ten people in the audience. Sometimes you see a Fringe show where the title doesn't really match the content of the show. Sometimes you see a Fringe show where despite everyone's best intentions it just doesn't come together.

A Midsummer Knight's Dream... What? (and yes, that's the whole title) from Into the Mask Theatre is sadly all of these things at the same time.

Firstly, despite the title, it's not actually Shakespeare... having seen the show and re-reading the blurb, it's still not completely clear that that's not the case. Yes I can kind of see the parallels between the Bard's tale of fairies and lovers, but this was a story all of it's own.

Which isn't to say that it's a bad story, it's just not what I was expecting and it's also... well, the best phrase I can really think of to describe it is a little bit awkward. And it was made a little worse because there were only about ten people in the audience.

It's not due to a lack of energy from the performer, Shane... he was definitely putting his all into it. And there were points that were amusing, and the entire character of the cyclops, with the decidedly Muppet inspired voice, was a definite stand out. The masks that were used to transition between the different characters were also gorgeous, even (or perhaps especially) the one with the erect penis for a nose.

His musical accompanist was quite cute in a nerdy musical blonde way, and could definitely play the living daylights out of both the keyboard and guitar he used throughout the show.

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