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Last week, I talked about learning about A Midsummer Night’s Dream through an episode of the radio show, In Our Time. Marg enjoyed The Seaside Book Club by Helen Rolfe about an international book club where people develop truly caring relationships, in spite of starting off as online acquaintances. Tina enjoyed Matt Haig’s follow-up book to The Midnight Library — a similar concept called The Midnight Train.

As part of my exploration of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I searched to find filmed stage productions and discovered that Julie Taymor’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is highly regarded. Then, the trick was to find access to it.

Julie Taymor’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is available on a streaming service called Kanopy that I accessed through my library. That was a first for me and, now, I’m excited about what else I can see on Kanopy.

Julie Taymor is most famous for her 1997 stage adaptation of The Lion King. I haven’t seen that, but I’m just aware enough of Broadway productions to remember that The Lion King changed what people thought was possible in a stage show.

Her production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was critically acclaimed, selling out its run at the Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn, NY, in 2013.

It was a splendid play to watch with simple staging — like people carrying poles to represent the dark and scary woods — interspersed with modern technology — like the love-in-idleness flower projected onto a giant screen.

Puck stole the show, as I imagine that Puck often does. Kathryn Hunter has unique abilities as a clown and actor for gender nonconformity and odd body positions. She was convincingly not-quite-human.

For my purposes, this production served me well because the dialogue closely matched the version of the play that I picked up at the library. I loved that I could read the words that Shakespeare wrote (at least, as far as history managed to save them) and then see an interpretation by actors that often gave me more clarity.

I would love to see a stage production in person, now that I’m more familiar with the play. Julie Taymor’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream was a good substitute until I can make that happen.