One of the things I love about Shakespeare is how adaptable the plays are. It is the constant inventiveness of companies and directors that keep us going to see the same plays reinvented again and again. I have seen A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a big top, with fairies on roller-skates and even performed in several different languages. What made all these productions work was a clear consistent concept, a vision of how the company wanted the audience to see the play with fresh eyes. This was a consistency that was missing in this production.
The set, which I loved, featured two trees with mismatched table lamps attached as branches which flickered to show fairies were flickering about. This meant when we entered I thought we were in for a low-tech kitch style production.
But the four actors were in highly contemporary dress, clashing with this style. There were several childhood themed props: a slide, kazoos, a xylophone. Producing the play as if the characters were children amongst found objects, as if in an attic or similar would have been lovely. But when playing fairies their style changed again, Oberon and Titania standing almost static talking into bulky wired microphones moving only their hands as if signing. Puck moved about more, wearing some white gloves which lit up with coloured lights at the fingertips. This introduced yet another theme, of circus, which again didn’t match anything else that was going on. Puck, played by Sarah Calver also didn’t make enough use of the gloves, just constantly wringing her hands as if speaking sign language.
The production was full of missed opportunities. James Utechin as Lysander threw away so many funny lines in the lovers’ big argument scene I wanted to stand up and shout at him.
When I go to see a production of a Midsummer Night’s Dream I always look forward to seeing the Mechanicals: Bottom and the players’ disastrous rehearsals and hilarious production of Pyramus and Thisbe at the wedding at the end. So when I realised this company had cut all these scenes I was slightly disappointed but intrigued about what they might offer in their place. These scenes were replaced by the actors coming “out of character” and being the foolish actors themselves preparing for the “bonus play” of Pyramus and Thisbe after they had finished the main play. There was a nice touch to this as they drew the audience in, asking us to vote for what kind of Pyramus, Thisbe, Lion and Wall we would like to see enacted at the end. (Resulting in a dog Pyramus and an old male cockney Thisby whispering through a wall created by a till roll with ‘walley’ written on it.) However as an audience accustomed to watching Whose Line Is It Anyway? and similar improvisation shows, this staged and rather contrived version didn’t quite cut the mustard. If you’re going to cut the funniest part of a well-loved play I would expect you to replace it with something that at the very least is funnier than what you have cut. It was also problematic when it came to the scenes between Bottom and Titania with Gabriella Best going back into her Shakespearian character to play Titania but Louie McKenna staying outside the play still playing the overconfident actor with modern speech. He acted surprised when Titania approached him announcing she loved him, a surprise which considering he was supposed to be an actor playing a part in the same play as her, simply didn’t make any sense and was clumsily glossed over.
I love adaptations and rewrites of Shakespeare but they need to have more of an attention to detail than this. The company didn’t seem to love the play enough to stick to one good concept and do it justice. This feeling was compounded by a couple of small stumbles with lines which was surprising considering this was a number of performances into the run. It was particularly strange to hear this, and noticeable to the audience, as A Midsummer Night’s Dream is written almost entirely in rhyming iambic pentameter.
This production promised a lot and was full of great ideas but they were not followed through. While this was enjoyable to watch and engaged the audience, it wasn’t the best Midsummer Night’s Dream I have ever seen and if a professional company chooses to put on one of the most commonly performed Shakespeare plays I expect them to impress. This felt more like a work in progress, a scrapbook of decent concepts but not effective as a whole.
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