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28 - The O akville Beaver, Friday F e b ru a ry 17, 2 0 0 6 Image evokes memories of idle summers From Jan. 27 - March 25, The Oakville Beaver will publish a series of contributed articles for Oakville Addresses, a new public program at Oakville Galleries. We asked a variety of local Oakvillians, both teens and adults, to write a short essay on their favourite artwork from Oakville Galleries' permanent collection. Today's article is by Craig MacBride, 26, a reporter with The Mississauga News. MacBride grew up in Oakville and spent two years reporting for The Oakville Beaver. Oakville Addresses is a complementary program to the exhibition Addressing Oakville, on at Centennial Square, 120 Navy St. until March 26. Forward Theatre presents a new twist on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream Local talents are featured in Forward Theatre's production of William Shakespeare's ,4 Midsummer Night' s Dream -- with a twist -- which is on stage later this month in Mississauga. Oakville' s Festival of Classics actor Cory Sheehan and Candice Smith are among the stilt-walkers in the show, and Oakville Drama Series regular Jamie Mason plays the lovesick Helena. Winner of the 2003 Mississauga Arts Award for Best Emerging Performance Group, Forward Theatre presents Shakespeare's play, which investigates the world of feuding fairies and lovers lost in the woods, and combines it with another influence. "We've taken our inspiration for the show from the travel ing carnivals and sideshows in the American Mid-West of the 1930s," says Christopher Legacy, the production' s adapter and director. "The show is presented in the classical text, but we've designed the magical elements within the play to reflect the world of the traveling circus." The show features a number of stilt-walkers, including Sheehan and Smith, tumblers and a fire-breather. The story of A Midsummer Night' s Dream revolves around a pair of young lovers longing to marry against their parents' wishes. Ordered by the Duke to obey their parents, the lovers -- including Mason, who plays Helena -- go into hiding in the surrounding woods. A heated battle between the Fairy Queen and Fairy King is going on at the same time, and meanwhile, a group of local actors are meeting in the woods to rehearse a play for the Duke' s upcoming wedding. The feuding fairies use love spells and cause animalistic transformations on the mortals, and hilarity and chaos ensues. A Midsummer Night' s Dream .runs Feb. 24 and 25 at 8 p.m. at Mississauga's Living Arts Centre. Tickets cost $20 and $15 for students and seniors. Call 905-306-6000 or 1-888-805-8888 for tickets or visit www.forwardtheatre.com for more informa tion. By Craig MacBride SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER There were entire idle summers of youth based around such couches.' I hesitate to call them our secondhomes because our other homes, where parents made dinner and watched movies, and where we sometimes returned to fulfill mowing duties and to assure our parents we were still alive, those were our second homes. Such couches were our first homes, though temporary, and my home was on prime real estate. It was far enough away from houses that my friends and I could make all the noise we wanted, and there was plenty of shade under the canopy of trees. There was a beautiful view of Sixteen-Mile Creek, and just on the other side of the water, Glen Abbey Golf Course. Under the summer stars, we ran barefoot across the flawless fairways, Roy Arden, Bedroom in Copse, 1999 swam in the creek, built castles in the bunkers. : The couch in the photograph, like our couch on the bank of the creek, was probably from the spring dump, when couches and fridges and entire rooms worth of furniture are discarded, placed street-side for pickup, but also as a proclamation of affluence, of moving up in the world, from one period to the next. The couch was spotted by neigh-, bourhood kids, and, late at night, car ried to a forest, pushed down a hill, ric ocheting off trees until resting at the bottom. Then the summer, with booze pil fered from parents or purchased by older siblings, our nights were spent shamelessly flirting, spent setting fires, spent doing other dangerous things we'll never tell our children about and are only beginning to tell our pareflts about. Another year of school, an autumn chill, and the fallen leaves a cover putting another summer to rest, as we moved onward, from one period to the next. wmmmm places you nevei We invite you to come in and check out our great introductory SPA Chemicals & Accessories CHECK OUT OUR FINLEO SAUNAS. THE #1 BRAND WORLDWIDE U pper Middle