Engaging in Consexual Text

BUT THAT'S JUST A QUIBBLE COMPARED TO THE PROBLEMS in Midsummer, a generic staging with doggedly traditional ambitions -- pagan English faeries spraying sparkle-dust and prancing in a forest (with portable cascading fauna), lit in silvery, smoky hues by Pilbrow, and juxtaposed against an Athenian court, costumed by Gunter in Elizabethan garb. The star-crossed lovers are fine, sort of amusing and even slightly impish. So what? Hall's stately pacing, which so well serves Measure for Measure, here bogs down, probably because there's little that's conceptually fresh. The play is beautifully designed and spoken for the most part, though Kelly McGillis' Fairy Queen Titania has some ä kind of speech impediment that renders her incomprehensible. Perhaps to compensate, Titania's hubbie, King Oberon (Peter Francis James), is clear to the exclusion of all else.

The goofy mechanicals are dutifully diverting, but the main problem is emblemized in Thomas' manic-spirit Puck -- and the frenzy he exudes, which should appear effortless. Just to watch him, though, is exhausting, a temptation to, as they say, close your eyes and think of England.

HALL STANDS AMONG A QUARTET of iconic stage directors all named Peter -- Brook, Stein and Sellars. Though their methodologies have shifted and evolved, it's fair to generalize that they each work from a different starting point: Brook, from legend; Stein, from stylization; and Sellars, from any number of cryptic conceptual whims. Of the four, Hall alone proceeds from the lines in the play. In so doing, he places himself in what could be dubbed "The Olde English Skoole," which is rather like a train of thought that's huffed and puffed its way to the Ahmanson all the way from Restoration London. Hall's dedication to the lines, to their cadence and clarity, to their melody and tone, borders on the spiritual.

That poetry courses and workshops in our colleges and universities have, of late, been filled to capacity (a recent phenomenon) is a strong argument in favor of Hall's approach -- perhaps the only argument. Alas, it stands dwarfed by a mountain of evidence that we belong to a society that increasingly speaks through pictures rather than words.

This is what Hall is up against when he advocates the primacy of the lines. Which may partly explain why his productions look just a bit staid. Not for lack of lucid interpretation and passionate performances, but from a nagging sense that the visual elements, however carefully wrought, are more or less tagging along behind the words. As compensation, Hall serves, and serves up, Shakespeare's prose and poetry with unconditional care and skill. And that's nothing common.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE and A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM| By WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Directed by PETER HALL | At the AHMANSON THEATER, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown | Through August 1