Timing is everything. Back in 1939, when the Harlem Renaissance was old news, the Shakespeare–meets–Benny Goodman mash-up called Swingin’ the Dream sank like a stone at Rockefeller Center. This despite the presence of the great Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, never minus his golden trumpet, as Bottom, morphing from ham tragedian to donkey-headed boy toy for Titania, queen of the fairies. Butterfly McQueen, weeks ahead of the release of Gone with the Wind, raised hell as Puck.
Tonight through July 28, courtesy of Classical Theatre of Harlem, a Harlem Renaissance–flavored Midsummer Night’s Dream takes to Spanish Harlem at the open-air Richard Rodgers Amphitheater, in Marcus Garvey Park, and the prospects couldn’t look rosier.
