Theater Review | Dreamy Expectations Are More than Met with the Rubicon-Acting Company Collaboration

‘Great Expectations’ and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ Share a Stage and Cast in Ventura

(Left to Right) SAM IM, MALLORY AVNET, ANTHONY RICHARDSON, CHRISTIAN FROST, MADELEINE BARKER, and TAY BASS star in SHAKESPEARE’S A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, playing in repertory as part of Rubicon Theatre Company’s 2025 “Winterfest”, presented in an encore partnership with The Acting Company of New York. | Photo: Loren Haar

ANGIE JANAS stars MISS HAVERSHAM in CHARLES DICKENS’ GREAT EXPECTATIONS, playing in repertory as part of Rubicon Theatre Company’s 2025 “Winterfest”, presented in an encore partnership with The Acting Company of New York. | Photo: Loren Haar

This December, the Rubicon presents their return collaboration with The Acting Company, a touring theater group out of New York. This year’s productions include a new adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations (by Nikki Massoud) cycling in rep with William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. These shows became a true testament to the theater’s credo of “the show must go on” after several cast members became too ill or injured to perform. Despite last-minute cast massaging, both shows are smooth, well spirited, and artistically engrossing.

I saw Great Expectations as a reading (warming up the revised cast), but Massoud’s adaptation is strong even without the full range of motion. Great Expectations has enough storylines and characters to populate a four-episode arc, but The Acting Company’s production focuses energy on Pip’s rise to fortune and his long situationship with Estella, condensing other threads into bullet points that support the main story. It’s a highly potent adaptation that drips with delicious gothic elements. (All further performances of Great Expectations will be presented as full productions.)

Meanwhile, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a playful fantasy of lights and colors. This production frolics nimbly, finding humor in the ridiculous and reveling in it. Seeing shows in rep, especially shows with very different concepts, shapes a fascinating new dimension of the theatrical experience. A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Great Expectations share the same set structure, but the space transforms between a woodland dell in Athens and Victorian England. Witnessing design and performers that can fit in both the rod-iron world of Dickens and the florid celebration in Shakespeare’s fairyland shows audiences a broader range of theatre artistry. See both shows through December 21 at the Rubicon Theater in Ventura. For tickets and information, see rubicontheatre.org.

(Left to Right) SAM IM and TAY BASS star in CHARLES DICKENS’ GREAT EXPECTATIONS, playing in repertory as part of Rubicon Theatre Company’s 2025 “Winterfest”, presented in an encore partnership with The Acting Company of New York. | Photo: Loren Haar
(Left to Right) ANTHONY RICHARDSON, SAM IM, ANGIE JANAS, and MADELEINE BARKER star in CHARLES DICKENS’ GREAT EXPECTATIONS, playing in repertory as part of Rubicon Theatre Company’s 2025 “Winterfest”, presented in an encore partnership with The Acting Company of New York. | Photo: Loren Haar
(Left to Right) ANGIE JANAS and BRENDAN D. HICKEY star in SHAKESPEARE’S A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, playing in repertory as part of Rubicon Theatre Company’s 2025 “Winterfest”, presented in an encore partnership with The Acting Company of New York. | Photo: Loren Haar
(Left to Right) MALLORY AVNET, MADELEINE BARKER and SAM IM star in SHAKESPEARE’S A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, playing in repertory as part of Rubicon Theatre Company’s 2025 “Winterfest”, presented in an encore partnership with The Acting Company of New York. | Photo: Loren Haar
(Left to Right) CHRISTIAN FROST, MADELEINE BARKER, BRENDAN D. HICKEY, ANTHONY RICHARDSON, MALLORY AVNET, SAM IM, and ANGIE JANAS star in SHAKESPEARE’S A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, playing in repertory as part of Rubicon Theatre Company’s 2025 “Winterfest”, presented in an encore partnership with The Acting Company of New York. | Photo: Loren Haar
(Left to Right) MADELEINE BARKER and SAM IM star in CHARLES DICKENS’ GREAT EXPECTATIONS, playing in repertory as part of Rubicon Theatre Company’s 2025 “Winterfest”, presented in an encore partnership with The Acting Company of New York. | Photo: Loren Haar
(Left to Right) SAM IM and BRENDAN D. HICKEY star in CHARLES DICKENS’ GREAT EXPECTATIONS, playing in repertory as part of Rubicon Theatre Company’s 2025 “Winterfest”, presented in an encore partnership with The Acting Company of New York. | Photo: Loren Haar
ANGIE JANAS stars MISS HAVERSHAM in CHARLES DICKENS’ GREAT EXPECTATIONS, playing in repertory as part of Rubicon Theatre Company’s 2025 “Winterfest”, presented in an encore partnership with The Acting Company of New York. | Photo: Loren Haar
(Left to Right) BRENDAN D. HICKEY and SAM IM star in CHARLES DICKENS’ GREAT EXPECTATIONS, playing in repertory as part of Rubicon Theatre Company’s 2025 “Winterfest”, presented in an encore partnership with The Acting Company of New York. | Photo: Loren Haar
(Left to Right) MADELEINE BARKER, CHRISTIAN FROST, TAY BASS, ANTHONY RICHARDSON, MALLORY AVNET, and BRENDAN D. HICKEY star in SHAKESPEARE’S A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, playing in repertory as part of Rubicon Theatre Company’s 2025 “Winterfest”, presented in an encore partnership with The Acting Company of New York. | Photo: Loren Haar
(Left to Right) ANGIE JANAS and CHRISTIAN FROST star in SHAKESPEARE’S A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, playing in repertory as part of Rubicon Theatre Company’s 2025 “Winterfest”, presented in an encore partnership with The Acting Company of New York. | Photo: Loren Haar
(Left to Right) TAY BASS, PAULI PONTRELLI, and CHRISTIAN FROST star in CHARLES DICKENS’ GREAT EXPECTATIONS, playing in repertory as part of Rubicon Theatre Company’s 2025 “Winterfest”, presented in an encore partnership with The Acting Company of New York. | Photo: Loren Haar