Marina Greenfeld: So, I wanted to first, before we get to our specific production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, talk about your history with theatre and performance, and what that relationship is like?
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Elliott Bexley: I would say, my junior year of high school, I started kind of coming in to who I was more, and embracing more being a hippie and being a weirdo, and some queer expression, but really theatre was my first feeling of being comfortable with queer expression and queer gender expression. So, it meant the world to me as far as a closeted queer person in high school and feeling like I had a space where I could actually express that. So, junior year I did a "back to the 80s" play that was fun, and then my senior year I did Grease, which was fucking awesome.
MG: Amazing.
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EB: So, that was the last thing I did, and I have been wanting to do theatre since, but when I was in college at Ole Miss, I didn’t really have time. I was in a really bad place mental health-wise most of the time I was in college, at least the first half. And, you know, whatever, didn’t really have the will, and also just my scheduling and all that stuff. And then, when I lived in Portland, Oregon, I worked in restaurants the whole time, and community theatre rehearsal schedule is based around 8-5 schedules and stuff like that. So, anyway, I’ve been wanting to do theatre since high school and haven’t, and this has been super exciting.
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Yeah, so it's just felt really cool. Also, you know, my original character was Francis Flute, who’s also Thisbe, and basically is this whole kind of meta drag queen situation. Obviously, Shakespearean theatre is the roots of drag culture because women weren't allowed to be actors, and so men had to dress up as women, and that's the roots of drag culture. And Thisbe is the kind of meta, you know, expression of that in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And I am also in my journey right now of trying to become a drag queen. I mean, I've been in drag several times, but I haven't performed. So, it just felt like the universe lined those things up really in a cool way. And then of course as cool as that was, of course I'm even more glad to get the role of Puck. Unfortunately, it happened in a really messy way. There were miscommunications. There was some poor communication, but, you know, it worked out OK, and, I think as OK as I guess it could have. And as much as I hated that Ellie had to quit the play because of some of that messiness and stuff, I definitely was, you know— Puck is one of the most ideal roles for me in theatre, of any play or anything. So it worked out really good, even though I did love my character that was literally a version of me and doing the whole meta expression of drag and stuff like that.
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MG: So, you were cast in two roles at different points in the production, and I'd love to know about your personal process of developing those roles. Once you found out who you were going to be, what kind of things did you do to prepare for that?
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EB: So Puck, this is one of my favorite characters in any, you know, in any play, and the most important part of this interview to me because I think Puck represents a lot. Well, first of all, Puck in medieval folklore means demon or malicious fairy; that's the definition. And so, with Robin Goodfellow, it's not even like Shakespeare took that name and made it his own thing. Literally he just was like, “This is this folklore character, this archetype of folklore, whatever.” Which I think it's so interesting how in folklore and so much of our culture, religion, how much we talk about demons, and we “demonize” them, hence the term demonize, but also we're infatuated with them, you know? And they're everywhere in religion, and in folklore and everything like that. And I think that it ties in this whole archetype of Puck, you know, agent of chaos and stuff ties in with the archetype of the jester and the harlequin, and what I find so beautiful and interesting about it is, I mean, I think that our existence and the nature of our reality is inherently absurd and chaotic on planet Earth, the Milky Way Galaxy. And I think that Puck, that character is a representation of that chaos and of embracing that chaos because we live in this world, and going back to the whole performance thing, we live in this world where we're supposed to pretend and give off this illusion that everything is orderly and fine, and things are, you know, things are nice and things are not chaotic, and we can control our reality. We can control these things in our lives, when really the nature of our reality is chaotic and absurd. I mean, that's literally how evolution has happened, just this kind of chaotic thing. I think that embracing that chaos and absurdity kind of allows you to be more harmonious with the nature of our reality, which creates a sense of inner peace in a way. I think that the fact that humans are so entertained by this jester, this hobgoblin, the clown, the whatever, it shows how much we're infatuated with seeing that represented, because even for people who aren't maybe in their conscious mind aware of it, I think that it’s really refreshing because I think that we all have somewhere deep within us something, a voice kind of screaming, “This world's chaotic and crazy and doesn't make a lot of sense, and also is dark and painful and suffering.” I think that a part of us is aware of that pretty much for all of us. I feel like Puck is the ultimate, like let's like express that and let it out. I think that humans have a lot of dark sort of sides to them. I think we have this kind of dichotomy of a dark and light that we're balancing. Think about little kids: they love seeing people— and human adults— we love seeing people get hurt. We love violence. We love all these things not only because maybe it makes you feel better about your thing, but also there’s something in us that's kind of like, “Mmm.”
MG: We want to see what will happen.
EB: Yeah. Yeah. And we want to see chaos, honestly, I think. And I think that Puck is kind of this character that's totally embracing that chaos and absurdity, and also hedonism, and I think there's a part of us that really wants to embrace hedonism because really the way our human brains work, we want this dopamine rush and this serotonin thing, and these endorphins, and all these chemicals and whatever. And hedonism just is embracing pleasure and all that, and it feels really good.
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But anyway, I think Puck kind of represents this hedonistic embracing of that chaos, embracing of the dark side and all that, but it's so entertaining and people love to see it because people are like, that's so refreshing in this world where we're constantly trying to perform like everything's hunky-dory and this “civilized,” you know, humanhood.
MG: Well, all of that makes sense to me when this play is about coming from the civilization of the city, and then the couples, they're in disarray and they end up in the woods, away from civilization and they have to work their shit out, you know, out there, away from social structures. So, I think that's a really interesting reading because of that. And then they, you know, they figure it out and then they go back in.
EB: Exactly. And I think that the other thing, well, the other two things I just remembered was talking about the mystic, the mystique, whatever, humans love that. And we love to have a little mystical, magical, chaotic walk into the woods and that's what the lovers in the play are doing. And when you walk into the woods, you never know what's going to happen, you know? That's when Puck happens. That’s another thing that's so attractive about this play is the mystique and the mystical nature of it and all that, which I think humans really love, and I think that ties into this whole kind of chaotic kind of absurd thing because I think a lot of this idea of mystical things is kind of a lot of beauty in the chaos and absurdity of things and all that.
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MG: All right. So, as we've mentioned a little bit so far, this is not a typical production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Our director has made some changes, swapped some of the gendered coupled roles, and then also made the group of mechanicals into modern-day Southerners, and change to their lines to reflect that. So, how do you feel about some of those choices that were made, that have changed things about the play?
EB: I love them so much because first of all, we obviously live in such a patriarchal society, and men have had the positions of power historically and all this stuff, and that's reflected in our art and theatre, right? Even though Shakespeare was talking about a lot of radical things, he's still writing theatre for people in his time. Of course, all the positions of power, a lot of these are men. He also talks a lot about monarchies and stuff, which are just complete patriarchal systems. But anyway, yeah, so I love that the director did the kind of swapping of gender roles so that the women kind of have more agency than the men have; they are in more positions of power.
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In this the gender roles are switched, but there's also been women and assigned female at birth (AFAB) people cast into men roles. And, you know, Ellie was Puck, and women have often been cast as Puck. And there's several queer people that are acting in this. I love that an AFAB person, an assigned female at birth person, a queer, non-binary, AFAB person is Bottom, Kate. And I love that, and I've talked to them a lot about Bottom representing gender expression, and a queer, non-binary, AFAB person navigating what masculinity means for them. It's kind of like the flip of what happens a lot in Shakespeare where it's men kind of engaging in femininity, and the whole drag queen thing. Bottom is kind of a drag king. I mean, an AFAB, queer person engaging in masculinity and all that. And I'll leave the rest of that conversation for Kate's interviews.
MG: Oh, they got into it; it was excellent. It was great.
EB: Yeah, I know that they did because we we've talked a lot about it. Yeah, so that was really cool. And it's just— I love the genderfuck. I love the genderfuckery of Shakespearean theatre, of this production of Shakespearean theatre, of queerness altogether. And that's what, you know, that's what drag is about, and so yeah, it's been super cool. And my version of Puck is definitely a queer version of Puck. I think that Puck is kind of a queer character. There’s a lot of subtlety or maybe not so subtlety in sexual innuendos in his lines. So he is kind of a sexual person, whatever. Sorry, not person, fairy or whatever you want to call him. Again, the fact that Puck has so often been cast with a woman or a queer person or an AFAB person shows, I think, represents, speaks for itself Puck kind of being this queer person, at least in his gender expression, if not sexual orientation. Yeah, so this is already such a queer Shakespeare play, and so I love all the gender and queer commentary and expression in it and how that's been represented in the gender roles switching and all of that.
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I'm really glad she did the mechanicals as Southern. In some ways it could be read as playing into this kind of negative idea of Southern people being less civilized, more down-home, whatever, but then, on the other hand, I think there's a beauty to Southern culture and embracing that and being, “Yeah, unlike a lot of places in the world and in this country, we're OK with being kind of humble, down-home, country folk.” We embrace that. That’s beautiful. And the mechanicals in our play embrace that and embrace being the working-class, down-home, country folk, and just being who they are, not feeling like they have to try to be what the Royals are.
MG: They’re also the only artists in the play, you know? Like they're making something.
EB: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean the fairies casting spells is maybe an art form. I don't know. It’s something. Anyway, I love that, and, especially with the queerness of Flute and Bottom / Thisbe and Pyramus, being Southern characters is super special to me. And yeah, I mean, I'm very biased, but my favorite people in the world, people who I connect with the most are queer people in the South, you know? Maybe that's just because that's who I am, but I think that. Something that I realized when I was in high school was, you know, I was a hippie and I was the only liberal kid in my school and I was always getting into arguments and everything, and I was like, “I can't wait to get out of Mississippi.” I wanted to go to UCLA, and I was like, “I want to go to Southern California.” Now, I could not live in Southern California, but I wanted to do that. I was like, “Can't wait to get out of Mississippi.” And then I went to Ole Miss for multiple different reasons, some of them practical, a lot of them practical, but I’m glad I did. And especially in the second half of being at Ole Miss, it made me really embrace the South and Mississippi and the beauty and the mystique of Mississippi. And also Mississippi representing a microcosm of what's ugly and wrong with America and the racism and the poverty and the classism and the homophobia and patriarchy, which all of these things are in other parts of America. I think that my big thing when I talk about Mississippi especially, but like the South, is that there's this idea that everywhere else in the country basically kind of uses a place like Mississippi as a scapegoat, like, “Oh well, but at least we're not Mississippi, at least we're not that.” When systemic racism, toxic masculinity, homophobia, misogyny, all that is so ingrained in this white supremacist, patriarchal world that we live in, in this colonized, imperialist nation of America. It's ingrained in so much of just western white culture anyway. I think that in Mississippi growing up, it's tough because it's all rural. It's all rural. It’s all rural. So, in rural spaces there's less kind of diversity and crowds, so there's less ability to navigate into like, “Oh, well, most people are this, but at least I have this queer group or this weirdo group or this goth group or whatever.” There’s less of that. And so, it's hard. We, as humans, want to fit in and we want to be loved and accepted. And it's been kind of really hard growing up in Mississippi to see all these really lovely, beautiful people be toxic and conservative and all that, because that's the culture and the world. Perception is reality. If that's your perception of what you're supposed to be, kind of, you fit into that. So, I feel privileged. I was raised by kind of more open-minded, liberal people, and that kind of allowed me to be able to like see more.
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It's so apparent and clear and obvious and in your face, all what's wrong with Mississippi, which is what's wrong with America. So I think it allows you to kind of see all that, and that's why so many great writers are from Mississippi, because you don't have to go searching for it; it's right there in your face. You know, Faulkner, whatever. And that's why so many writers are attracted, such as yourself, to Oxford and Mississippi and all that stuff. I think that there's like a mystique about Mississippi and the South, and kind of the beauty of the country folk and kind of embracing the eccentricity of these people living in these rural spaces, and I think that the South really celebrates that, and I think that's beautiful. And I think that the mechanicals represent that. They're like, “Yeah, we embrace that we're some down-home country folk, who are artists and tradesmen, whatever. And let's less embrace all that.” And it's funny, and it's hilarious. And Southern people tell you what they think. And that's why I hated the passive-aggressive, fake, superficial niceness of a lot of West Coast white culture. Don't get me wrong— I know a lot of fabulous people there, white people on the West Coast, you know, but I mean, as a larger conversation. I like that Southern culture is about being honest a lot of times, and a lot of times the honesty is bad if you have toxic ideas of things, but there's a beauty to the honesty and the realness and the rowdiness and the embracing all of that. I think in a lot of other parts of the country, we need to reserve ourselves and act more civil. There's an idea of acting more civilized and proper and blah, blah, blah, and the South is like, “No, let's be dirty. Let's be rowdy. Let's embrace that.”
Elliott Bexley is a Mississippian born and raised in Vicksburg. He is a graduate of the University of Mississippi with a B.A. in Psychology, and is a mental healthcare worker at Communicare.