REVIEW : ‘Midsummer’ Ideal Show Under Stars : A preview of the Shakespeare play shows much promise. The price is right--performances are free.

If ever there was a Shakespeare play designed to be presented under the stars to a family audience, it’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” There’s young love, old love, fairies, noblemen, and a fellow who wanders around with a donkey’s head on his shoulders. Written to be performed at a wedding, it’s relatively lightweight and easy to follow.

All those qualities combine to make “Midsummer” ideal for Shakespeare in the Park, which will be presenting it throughout southern Ventura County through Aug. 8.

A preview performance at the Arts Council Center in Thousand Oaks last Saturday night showed much promise, though in some ways the cast’s limited rehearsal (occasioned by a last-minute change in directors and a temporary cast substitution) was evident. It was fine, a bargain at the price--free, as are all future performances--and should get even better as time goes by.

As the play opens, Hermia’s father has chosen Demetrius as her husband-to-be. Unfortunately, Hermia is in love with Lysander. Complicating matters further, Helena has a crush on Demetrius, who doesn’t care for her at all. The solution to all of this would be for Demetrius to fall in love with Helena, leaving Hermia and Lysander to one another. In the meantime, Oberon, the Fairy King, is upset with his Queen, Titania. He calls upon the goblin, Puck, to pull a prank on her, which misfires. High jinks ensue as practically everybody falls in love with the wrong person.

Into the middle of all this wander a troupe of common folk who moonlight as actors in Shakespeare’s comic version of community theater. They could represent much of show business, though, as the lead actor demands rewrites to fit what he sees as his unique talents, another makes the most of being asked to portray a wall (this several centuries before Stanislavsky and the Actors Studio), and all concerned take themselves very seriously indeed.

It was the “actors,” Shakespeare’s low comic relief to the ethereal goings-on of the fairies, who needed the most work at Saturday’s show, showing little self-confidence in early scenes but improving greatly as they presented their play-within-a-play, “Pyramus and Thisbe.” This situation will very likely improve, bringing the troupe up to the level of the rest of the cast.

Director Michael Jordan has alternating roles from one performance to another, and one of the principals wasn’t on hand at all for last Saturday’s show, so what that audience saw will not be what future audiences will see. Nevertheless, it’s possible to single out some highlights that should continue.

While Pepita Merayo, Rob O’Neill and Mark Anthony Tortorici were very able as Hermia, Demetrius and Lysander, the comic highlight was Toni Beery’s performance as the woozily love-struck Helena, who finds herself far less comfortable when receiving amorous advances than she is in giving them. That the blond Beery towers over brunet Merayo adds to the comedy.

Also especially notable was David Kirkwood as Oberon, playing his role with the dignity of a royal. Brenda Kenworthy is a sprightly Puck, and Pamela Canton, Rebecca Hanes, Bianca Jansen, Lloyd Shellum and Charles Way portray the attendant fairies. Shellum and Way are rather more clumsy than one’s normal idea of wood nymphs, and all the funnier for the contrast.

Allison Levine gives a portrayal of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, who’s more sensual than regal, and Mark Andrew Reyes stepped in Saturday night to play Theseus, Duke of Athens, in the play’s front- and end-pieces.

Director Michael Jordan plays Peter Quince, the director of “Pyramus and Thisbe,” with John Henry Whitaker, Jim Diderrich, Brett Parrott and Theresa Secor as the actors; Whitaker’s mask makes him look more like the Wolfman than a donkey, but he’s still quite amusing--a child in Saturday’s audience several years younger than might be expected to enjoy Shakespeare seemed quite taken by the characterization.

There’s no scenery, Andrea Saklad’s costumes are effective (and, in the case of the fairies, quite striking), and Felix Mendelssohn’s music was used between scenes.

* WHERE AND WHEN

* “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” plays at Borchard Center in Newbury Park this Saturday, Peach Hill Park in Moorpark on Sunday, the Conejo Community Center in Thousand Oaks on July 17, Grape Arbor Park in Calabasas on July 18, Constitution Park in Camarillo on July 24, the Arts Council Center in Thousand Oaks on July 25, Rancho Simi Park in Simi Valley on Aug. 7 and Oak Park in Moorpark on Aug. 8.

* All performances are at 7 p.m. except those at Peach Hill Park, Grape Arbor Park and Oak Park, which will be at 5 p.m.; and at Rancho Simi Park, which will be at 1:30 p.m. Admission to all performances are free, and reservations are necessary only for the July 25 show.

* For reservations to that show or further information on any show, call 499-4355.