Love, dreams, treachery, mayhem and murder are on display at the Old Globe Theatre’s summer Shakespeare Festival. Playing in repertory through Oct. 1 are A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello and the first ever Globe production of Titus Andronicus, the Bard’s first tragedy.

Othello is directed by guest director Jesse Berger. Festival director Darko Tresnjak directs the others.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Ah, summer, when love blossoms and wilts in the heat of the sun, and outdoor sport draws all classes out of the city and back to nature.

The Old Globe Theatre’s summer Shakespeare festival presents A Midsummer Night’s Dream in repertory with Othello and Titus Andronicus through Oct. 1 on stage at the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre.

You remember the plot elements: the pending marriage of Theseus, duke of Athens (J. Paul Boehmer), and Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons (Lise Bruneau), four young lovers who don’t seem to know their rightful partners; fairy king and queen Oberon (Boehmer) and Titania (Bruneau) squabbling over “ownership” of a changeling; and six laborers preparing a play for the wedding festivities of Theseus and Hippolyta.

Director Darko Tresnjak finds a novel way to introduce the young lovers: a school graduation ceremony at Athena Academy in which graduates Hermia (Eve Danzeisen), Helena (Julie Jesneck), Demetrius (David Villalobos) and Lysander (Owiso Odera) process down the aisles to mid-stage, where they take their diplomas. On the way out, the headmaster (Wynn Harmon) turns to leave, revealing a “Kick Me” sign on his jacket. Ah, kids.

After this scene comes the only serious one in the play, in which Hermia’s father, Egeus (Wynn Harmon), exerts his parental prerogative and orders her to choose one of these options: marry Demetrius, enter a convent or die. She is in love with Lysander. Fear not, this is a midsummer night’s dream; it all works out.

All characters flee the Athens heat for the forest, where magical things can and do happen, signaled by the entrance of Titania and her fairy entourage on a crescent moon. Soon Oberon shows up with his assistant, Puck (Michael Drummond), plotting to kidnap the changeling.

Crazy things happen, with magic potions pairing the wrong lovers and Titania falling in love with “an ass” – Bottom the weaver (Jonathan Peck) in a donkey head.

These aren’t just any mechanicals, either. The characters don’t just amble onstage, but enter together, each through a different door, farce style.

Costume designer Paloma Young’s wonderful costumes are mostly Edwardian in inspiration, with some Greco-Roman looks thrown in. She tosses in unconventional primary colors for the royal equestrians’ outfits – bright red jackets (later black ones) with snow-white pants – making for striking stage pictures.

Tresnjak has such a way with blocking that it’s almost enough just to watch the way he moves actors around. Fortunately, he also has a splendid cast. My favorites are Peck’s joyously over-the-top Bottom (Peck must be loving this comedic break from his other festival role of Othello) and Jesneck’s Helena, a pretty girl who manages – hilariously – to convince us that she is frumpy. But J. Paul Boehmer and Lise Bruneau should not be slighted for their interpretations of both the actual and the fairy king and queen. In fact, this is a solid adult cast all around.

The one weakness is the 12-year-old Puck (Michael Drummond), cute as a button but unable to project sufficiently in this open space. And the original songs by Christopher R. Walker are lovely, but the cast needs to work on diction – most of the words are indecipherable.

Summer is a time for love and silliness. This Midsummer fills the bill nicely.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream plays in repertory (alternating with Othello and Titus Andronicus) through Sept. 29 at the Old Globe Theatre’s Lowell Davies Festival Theatre. For tickets, call (619) 23-GLOBE or visit www.theoldglobe.org.

In a lifetime of theatergoing, I’ve never seen a great Othello. I didn’t see one last night either, but I did see a whale of an Iago.

Othello plays in repertory (alternating with A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Titus Andronicus) through Oct. 1 at the Old Globe Theatre’s Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, directed by Jesse Berger.

The green-eyed monster that does in the Venetian general is summoned by the betrayal of Othello’s ancient, Iago (Karl Kenzler), angry about being passed over for promotion to lieutenant (and just a bad dude by nature).

At the top of the play, Othello (Jonathan Peck) is called by the Duke of Venice (Charles Janasz) to account for his secret marriage to Brabantio’s daughter Desdemona (Julie Jesneck). Othello eloquently describes their short courtship (“She loved me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she did pity them”) and then calls Desdemona, who confirms the story. Brabantio (Leonard Kelly-Young), forced to conclude what all can see – that they are crazy about each other – reluctantly gives his blessing, but warns, “She has deceived her father and may thee.”

The nuptial revels are postponed by Othello’s call to arms; he sails the next day to engage Turkish forces at Cyprus, but a storm destroys the Turkish fleet and scatters Othello’s forces, who limp back to port one by one.

Meanwhile, Iago entices Roderigo (Michael Urie), a simpleton in love with Desdemona, to his villainous cause, managing to get Cassio (Michael A. Newcomer) fired from his post as Othello’s second-in-command.

Enlisting the guileless Desdemona to plead Cassio’s cause with Othello, Iago at the same time plots to convince Othello that she has been unfaithful with Cassio. It’s a brilliant plan that is tragically successful, as lies and innuendo gradually drive Othello over the edge of reason and into murderous rage.

Berger (artistic director of New York’s off-Broadway Red Bull Theatre) sets the play in the Jacobean era in order to use the restrictive clothing of the time (pleated ruffs, tight bodices, many layers for the women) as evidence of the repressive social context in which these characters live.

Peck’s Othello looks great – tall and slim, with a commanding voice reminiscent of James Earl Jones. Peck is best in the early scenes, convincing the duke and Brabantio of his sincere love, and in the early stages of Iago’s treachery. But though Peck evidences plenty of anger, the overwhelming emotion of his slow mental disintegration does not come across. He rages, but the internal struggle is not in evidence.

Jesneck’s Desdemona is lovely – open-faced, open-hearted and utterly uncomprehending of her husband’s wrath. Likewise, Celeste Ciulla impresses as Emilia, especially in her late scenes. And Urie’s unusually simple Roderigo provides a few chuckles to relieve the horror.

But Iago! Ah, there’s a villain. Tall and handsome, Kenzler plays Iago as a cheerful sociopath unaffected by the mayhem he sets in motion. And withal so charming – it’s a blood-curdling, magnificent performance.

Kudos to Linda Cho for those to-die-for jewel-toned dresses, and to Christopher R. Walker, whose sound design sometimes has to compete with aircraft flying over Balboa Park and the sound of fireworks from the San Diego Zoo. And speaking of sound, I was moved again to wonder if it isn’t time to mic the actors. Too many lines are swallowed up in the cavern that is the Lowell Davies Festival stage.

Othello plays in repertory (alternating with A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Titus Andronicus) through Oct. 1 at the Old Globe Theatre’s Lowell Davies Festival Theatre. For tickets, call (619) 23-GLOBE or visit www.theoldglobe.org.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum – or, in this case, on the way to William Shakespeare’s youthful revenge play Titus Andronicus.

Borrowing the strains of “Comedy Tonight” from that Forum play, director Darko Tresnjak transforms Shakespeare’s early piece, so full of blood and gory excess, into something closer to a parody of revenge plays, or perhaps of revenge itself.

Titus Andronicus plays in repertory with Othello and Titus Andronicus through Oct. 1 at the Old Globe’s Lowell Davies Festival Theatre.

Called the Bard’s first tragedy, this lacks the sophistication of the later, timeless Hamlet and King Lear; with all the gore here, Titus Andronicus is more reminiscent of current films like Gladiator.

Funny is not the word for the actual plot, so bloody it would be difficult to watch if played straight (a current London production is reporting two or three fainting audience members during each show), but Tresnjak has updated the action to the present and uses a strange and wonderful assortment of red stand-ins for blood (including ribbons, shiny stars, red powder, a handkerchief and fans), which give the dual impressions of gore and the absurdity of revenge. This seems only fitting, given that the play is all about who will wear the crown of the decaying Roman Empire and who will pay for previous insults. So modern this theme: Who’s up and who’s down is the question at hand, and to be on top one must do the other guy in.

Three families play out this drama. General Titus (Leonard Kelly-Young), back from the wars, is named emperor. Titus, the aging father of four sons and a single daughter, Lavinia (Melissa Condren), hands off the crown to Saturninus (Wynn Harmon), son of the deceased emperor, who immediately picks Lavinia as his bride. But Lavinia, in love with Saturninus’ younger brother Bassianus (Karl Kenzler), does not consent; the pair run off and marry secretly.

Among the prisoners hauled onstage in a cage at the beginning of the play is Goth Queen Tamora (Celeste Ciulla). Despite her pleas for mercy, Tamora’s eldest son is realistically sacrificed before her (and our) eyes.

Saturninus, wasting no time and attracted to her beauty, makes Tamora his second choice for empress of Rome. She is thrilled, but not for the honor; rather, for the opportunity to right past wrongs. She does not forgive or forget; it is her thirst for revenge that dictates the rest of the action. “I’ll find a day to massacre them all,” she says (to the strains of Chicago’s “He Had It Coming”). And she comes close, with the help of Moorish slave (and Tamora’s lover) Aaron (Owiso Odera).

This is a fine cast, headed by Ciulla’s wonderfully wicked Tamora, perhaps the original devil in Prada, gorgeously clad by costume designer extraordinaire Linda Cho. Odera is terrific as her complicit lover, Aaron, who can nonchalantly deliver to Titus his severed hand and the heads of his two sons, all packaged in nice see-through plastic bags. When he finally gets his, Aaron’s only regret is that he couldn’t do more mayhem.

Titus Andronicus seems to have found new relevance in today’s political climate, where revenge is a daily threat. See it because it is a fine production or simply because you never have, and remember Tresnjak’s marketing slogan: “Death, rape, dismemberment, cannibalism – but no bad language.”

Titus Andronicus plays in repertory (alternating with A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Othello) through Oct. 1 at the Old Globe Theatre’s Lowell Davies Festival Theatre. For tickets, call (619) 23-GLOBE or visit www.theoldglobe.org.