#yale rep

She took on acting roles as well, including one legendary performance as Titania in Alvin Epstein’s revelatory vision of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Yale Rep. Carmen was also assigned choreographer duties, getting the fairies to move as forest creatures, toads, beetles, butterflies... Jack Kroll’s review in Newsweek explains it all: “The fusion of Shakespeare’s language and Purcell’s music is pure enchantment, intensified by the decisive contribution of Carmen de Lavallade as choreographer, dancer and the play’s Titania. It would take Shakespeare himself to describe Miss de Lavallade, whose supernal beauty embodies not only the physical but what I will splutteringly call the moral power of her presence. With Epstein she has devised witty behavioral music for the different levels of character.”

Tiffany Denise Hobbs and Brit West on stage in “Twelfth Night”at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven. (Joan Marcus)

Carmen de Lavallade and Christopher Lloyd with the fairies in Alvin Epstein’s 1975 production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Yale Rep. (Photo by Eugene Cook)

“Certainly Alvin’s Midsummer will live in memory as long as memory lives. Theatre life in New Haven had always been a struggle, unlike Cambridge, where we were a triumph the moment the ART company walked upon the Loeb stage. That was primarily because of Alvin’s Midsummer. “The theatre Boston has been waiting for,” exclaimed Kevin Kelly in his first review of our work in The Boston Globe. And though our productions never again quite captured the same delirious level of praise, Kelly’s reviews were usually to remain positive and supportive.” 

“His Midsummer proved a testing ground for almost every actor who came through Yale Drama School, Yale Rep, the ART Institute, and the ART. Virtually every student or company member sharpened their teeth on it. Among the actors who played the lovers were Meryl Streep, Cherry Jones, Sigourney Weaver, Steve Rowe, and Rick Elice. The rustics included Jeremy Geidt, Max Wright, Joe Grifasi, Johnny Bottoms, and Remo Airaldi. Fairies included the aforementioned Lloyd and de Lavallade, Mark Linn-Baker, and Tommy Derrah, while Liz Norment, Harry Murphy, Karen Macdonald, and Lloyd were among the court figures. Most of our kids (including my young son Danny) had the opportunity to play one of the fairy children. I even tried a welcoming speech myself before being hooted off the stage.”