Quintessence Theatre premiered "The Reckless Romance Repertory" this weekend, beginning with a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream."  Another Shakespeare work, "Antony & Cleopatra" will soon follow. Together, the plays bookend a comic and tragic treatment of the love problem. 

In his comedies, Shakespeare repeatedly pokes fun at lovers, seeing the "being in love" phenomenon as akin to madness. At the same time, he values love for its unworldly ecstasy and as an antidote to the limitations of reason, especially when rationality ossifies into formal law.  

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" is his supreme love comedy. Lysander (Tyler Elliott) loves Hermia (Ivana R. Thompson), but her father claims his right under Athenian law to demand that Hermia marry Demetrius (Gabriel Elmore). Helena (Sarah Stryker) loves Demetrius, and in her desperation to get him back, Helena sets the plot in motion. 

Shakespeare's greatness is rooted in his brilliant grasp of psychology and magnificent poetry. “Midsummer” is one of the few plays where he created the story. The Bard lifts a couple items from Plutarch and Ovid. But the inventive plot that swings between Athens, the capital of Western rationality, and a magical forest seems to be his own.

"Midsummer" is full of farcical elements, and Director Alex Burns doubles down on the comedy of "Midsummer" in linking love to madness. The result is a Quintessence show that delivers nonstop laughter while downplaying Shakespeare's subtle criticism of reason. 

Bottom and Puck

"Midsummer" is all about the comical turmoil of lovers. In his satirical zeal, Shakespeare's "minor" characters loom larger than the major ones. The Quintessence production makes Bottom and Puck even more central to the show.

Steven Anthony Wright plays Bottom. His elocution was a bit muffled, but Wright has the stage presence to create a charming fool who becomes Shakespeare’s mouthpiece: “And yet, to say truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.”

Comically ignorant of theater, Bottom makes himself the principal actor of "The Mechanicals" production of "Pyramus and Thisbe," Ovid's tale of ill-fated Babylonian lovers that is also the source story for "Romeo and Juliet." 

Except for the side theater in "Hamlet," it is Shakespeare's most celebrated play-within-a-play. 

Richly ironic, you watch the reconciled lovers watch a play, where they patronize and scoff at The Mechanicals' hokey vision of romantic love even as they remain oblivious to their own frivolity. 

Quintessence veteran Lee Thomas Cortopassi plays Puck, the messenger of King Oberon who delivers magic potions to sleeping characters, forcing them to fall madly in love with the first person they see upon waking. Cortopassi's presence is so vivid he continually takes over the show. 

His wide-eyed, manic speech and acrobatic  movements are almost demonic, as though Puck were absorbed in a private, impish agenda unrelated to Oberon's wishes. Entertaining as these scenes are, Puck draws attention away from Shakespeare's play in its entirety. 

Passion and reason

In his comedies, Shakespeare consistently sees love as inclined to madness. To conflate infatuation with dream fantasy, and to see its occurrence as the result of a mischievous fairy pouring magic potions on innocents while they sleep, is an apt metaphor. 

But in lampooning infatuation so robustly, it is easy to forget that the austerity of Athenian law, giving a father absolute power over a daughter's marriage, sets everything in motion. The focus on burlesque in the Quintessence production is so acute it mutes other aspects of "Midsummer.”

Yet, it is there. In his speech after "Pyramus and Thisbe," a conciliatory King Theseus muses: "Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies that apprehend more than cool reason comprehends." Love is flawed. But so is reason, and in their shared incompleteness, the one needs the other. 

Like dreams, the lovers' retreat into the forest is restorative. John Burkland's dramatic light design helps bring that out. Bluish lights pour over the rear wall. When characters have special love moments, the lights swirl tightly. At the end of the play they blossom to embrace the audience. It is a special touch.

It is the production's only extension into magical wonder. Oberon (Deanna S. Wright) and Titania (Christopher Patrick Mullen), the fairy king and queen, have a parallel romance. But their fairy minions are laughable by design, garishly costumed and buffoonish. And you are not supposed to take manly Titania seriously. 

The Quintessence production succeeds on its own terms, an unstinting send-up of romantic love. At the same time, you hunger for another approach, where comic talents do not steal the show, where the fleeting glimpse of gorgeous fairies takes your breath away, and where "shaping fantasies" partner with reason to give you a good night's sleep. 

Quintessence Theater is located at 7137 Germantown Ave. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" will run through April 26. Tickets available at 215-987-4450 or online at Quintessencetheatre.org.