Review A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream
by William Shakespeare

The Muddy Space
https://www.youngvic.org/

We have to admit we couldn't resist the rather pretentious theatrical pun as our strapline referring to Peter Brook's seminal book on theatre practice The Empty Space.

Chiefly because the Pelican version TLT possessed back in the day as an eager-beaver sixth former had the Midsummer Night's Dream lovers all in pristine condition without - er - mud.

Yes, director Joe Hill-Gibbins's version (he of the sex doll Measure For Measure)  is set on a muddy post-war battlefield. Or maybe it's a mud wrestling ring. Or then again a churned up building site. This is A Midsummer Night's Dream without a sign of a green shoot but with a huge rehearsal room mirror cleaving to the back wall, reflecting the actors, the action, the audience - and the mud.

So if you're squeamish about the brown stuff splattering dazzling white trousers or pastel-coloured dresses, this may not be the show for you. Otherwise it's certainly a quirky builders' midsummer night's dream with set and some nifty lighting from Johannes Schütz.

Theseus and Oberon (Michael Gould doubling up)  have thinning hair and are both bare-chested showing pale white flesh, one with silk dressing gown, one without. There's even a glimpse of a builders' bum with a skinny Nick Bottom (Leo Bill) who seems to have drawn inspiration from another comedy menial,  Peggy-from-Hi-de-Hi-turned male. Go see and you'll understand what we mean!.

Conquered concubine Hippolyta (Anastasia Hille), a smart City slicker in black trouser suit with red handkerchief in breast pocket, is understandably a tad miffed when handed a pair of stilletos to wear in the mud.  Although she does understand she has to endure this peculiar sinking humiliation to keep in with her prospective husband.

Theseus, Duke of Athens, has won Hippolyta in battle and brought her back home to marry her. The city's artisans club together to put on a show as part of the marriage celebrations. But before these go ahead, the Duke has to enforce a father's absolute authority over his daughter.

He orders feisty Hermia (Jemima Rooper) to marry the man of her father Egeus's (Lloyd Hutchinson) choosing, Demetrius (Oliver Alvin-Wilson), rather than her own true love Lysander. Even if Demetrius has dallied with Hermia's hoodie childhood friend Helena (Anna Madeley) who continues to live in hope of winning his love.

But perhaps it's all a reflection of what's also gone haywire in Faery Land, for the world of mortals reflects the supernatural realm which, invisible, inhabits the self-same clods of earth.

This realm's rulers, Oberon and Titania (Anastasia Hille again, blonde locks shaken down and in a flimsier black skirt),  are at odds and the King determines to punish his spouse. For this he uses the offices of  Puck (Lloyd Hutchinson doubling up this time), more chunky builder's labourer in a nylon wig  than spritely elf.  Add to this a splattering of mud, of course ... and plenty of miscommunication and mixed love potions and let the fun commence!

We know things are going wrong as the mirror gets grimy from handprints, after palms have been pressed in frustration on the glass. And the supernatural and human world become more and more intertwined until it may become impossible to put the wall - or mirror - between them. And of course one fears for those white trousers hitting the floor ...  Still, Peter Quince (Matthew Steer), chief artisan and overly cautious impressario, wisely has wellies  and a backpack - maybe with a change of clothing?.

In the midst of all that mud and two hours without an interval, the verse speaking is pretty good - the story and the meaning of the lines come over well. It becomes a moot point whether we are seeing the humans' or the fairies' dream. But we can't help thinking the sheer magic of the piece is beaten down and pummelled out of existence into the mud.

Our usual test is if a newcomer to the play came to the production, would s/he understand and feel thoroughly stimulated. This feels like a production for those who already know the text - having said this, that group may include plenty of schoolkids including eager beaver sixth formers who might  warm to this mash-mud.. 

But, perhaps strangely, once the production had settled on the mud as its central statement, it somehow didn't seem muddy enough - or at least needing a shower of  mud, mud, glorious mud denouement.

Still, the eternally white sheet used for the rough theatrical performance of Pyramus and Thisbe will  gladden the hearts of those with a phobia of mud stains.

This A Midsummer Night's Dream doesn't have the same verve and wit as Measure For  Measure. However it does possess a certain sweet and sour energy deserving of an upper range amber light as mortals and fairies slug it out and then find their uncaring breach of the boundaries has left their two worlds indelibly confused.

Review A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream

by William Shakespeare

Method And Madness

http://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/

OK, we at TLT Towers, one reviewer plus a puckish sidekick (no wings, but hey, TLT's jalopy is no Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!), are game for all sorts of productions. And this one is a curious one. 

Yet another A Midsummer's Night's Dream (AMND), this time stripped down like the wood flooring traverse stage it's played on. With just seven actors. And directed by Simon Evans whose Bug we enjoyed.

Well, there's a bug in this version of AMND - or maybe a couple of separate bugs since both get slapped down separately by actors entering the magic forest. And this is a very actorly Dream with quite a few rewrites, rejigs and reorderings but it also treads a dangerous path through the woods - in danger of becoming the thing it is parodying.

Yet in the midst of it, there are some very good young actors on display here. Yes, I should say this is a production filled with young actors. We're not sure if the cast will be infuriated  or will laugh at we mortal bloggers' foolish ways if we say the team of actors led by Freddie Fox but it seems to be his Ovidian transformation on the cover of the programme (see my associated Tweet - like it, retweet it, send me a tweet to plight your troth or whatever you like). 

However he may be harking back to the method of another English actor who, according to Sir Peter Hall here, did not seek to be loved by his audience.  

For we see a group of actors meeting in a rehearsal room for a performance of AMND with Freddie who plays Demetrius and Bottom definitely cock of the walk.  That's Freddie Fox again, of course (dahling!), not Freddie Hutchins who plays Lysander and mechanical Flute - the dilemma of what to do with two Freddies is, in fact the subject of a good, telling actorly joke which gets rather lost in the fray.

But somehow the introduction then of elements and costuming from children's tales felt more like incestuous theatrical references than an opening up of the text. But maybe the hierarchy of acting is the point, just as "dwarf" Hermia, despite being equal in height, has to make herself small beside "maypole" Helena (Lucy Eaton) to fit the part.

There's also a touch of the Play Gone Wrong in this production and it was as if we'd been lured into an experimental part of another project rather than a stand alone AMND. 

There are some witty ideas but also an overstepping of the tightrope into - yes what we said before - becoming that which it was trying to parody.

The verse speaking and other lines (it's a fast and loose AMND) ranges from the acoustically muffled to the crystal clear and entrancing with some occasional skilful interpretation. Theseus (Ludovic Hughes who also doubles as Oberon) takes on an intriguing inciting role while ex Eastender Maddy Hill goes from supple Titania to stage manager Peter Quince complete with red rasta cap, French onion man come mime artiste outfit with (badly drawn) moustache.

But we have to ask, while wishing to remain playful rather than utilitarian, who or what is it for? For example, is it a parody of or primer for exam multiple choice when we're told that the Dream is about the weather?

Was someone reading our mind when it struck us that all it needed was for a famous Hollywood alumnus of the actors' studio to appear and then lo and behold mini skirted (Julie Christie lookalike|) Susie Preece did a louche impersonation of the said same star?

Yes, it was one of those performance that you have to resign yourself to picking out the sweetest flowers, while wishing you could take the whole bunch in hand and let them do the beautifully-spoken straightforward version which you glimpse through the chink in the wall.

Talking of which, it's allocated seating, so if you're in the front row and not keen on being picked for audience participation, you may want to do a swift changeling swapping of seats. Everyone's so busy (there's a lot of running around and shouting), we don't think they'll notice.

At the same time, the competition between the two Freddies culminates in a truly visceral Pyramus and Thisbe scene with an interesting and, while couched in the cotton wool of hilarity and still suitable for children's consumption, truly painful echo of current affairs.

It could prove to be a show that should have been sponsored by Marmite. If you live up to type, you may have the reaction you've walked into a particularly chaotic theatre-in-education performance. Or like the photogenic young redhead boy in the audience on the night we attended, you may join in with gusto and collapse in fits of giggles and joy.

So TLT and her little sapling felt like two little lost boys without their own gang in the midst of this forest of frenzy without a Puck in dungarees (Melanie Fullbrook) or a Theseus to sort things out even with a closing magical moment which made them recall Metro Goldwyn Mayer's famous slogan. .

Hell, we think, why didn't they go hell for leather and create a new play about actors taking on A Midsummer Night's Dream? As it stands, we'll repeat for the third time, despite some clever touches, it felt as if it became what it was parodying, so it's a slippery elm amber light.

Review A Midsummer Night's Dream PREVIEW

A Midsummer Night's Dream
by William Shakespeare

Monster Midsummer Mash Up 
http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/ 

A joyful beginning to Emma Rice's tenure at The Globe for a gender-crossing xx best exotic Marigold xx A Midsummer Night's Dream where TLT and her garlanded companion found themselves groundlings in a wonderland just outside of Hoxton.

The tone is set from the start as tambourine-shaking parishioner Rita Quince (bespectacled Lucy Thackeray), in Globe volunteer uniform, clambers on the stage from white-tableclothed restaurant tables, introducing Nick Bottom (Ewan Wardrop) Health & Safety Officer.

Up above is the sitar-playing Sheema Mukherjee perched on a balcony and this parish has obviously now gone global in search of funding as is the wont of parishes nowadays ...   

*Flashback Alert!* 

We must confess to loving AMND (as we will shorten it from now on) since having our first magical experience at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. Not without it's Indian tinge too, since one of the co-directors was Kashmir-born David Conville (along with Richard Digby-Day, a partnership still it seems going strong, and Christopher Biggins!)  But at the time we were chiefly excited by seeing pre-Big Brother, post Rock Follies Rula Lenska as Titania and Liver Bird Elizabeth Estensen as beanpole Helena. 

Anyway fast forward to the present!  

*End of Flashback Alert!*  

It's a hybrid AMND (hold on to that acronym!), a trifle self-conscious but none the worse for that. A cross between Bollywood, 1960s' Performance (without the gore), Sgt Pepper, Ugly Betty, trademark Kneehigh puppetry and aerial  flourishes (although also playful gestures to Peter Brook's legendary "Empty Space" AMND with Alan Howard and Sara Kestelman) 

Fresh from the "blow up sex doll" Measure for Measure (doncha just love the TLT blog archive, just to be able to say and link to that?! Put that in your pipe and smoke it, broadsheets!;)), Zubin Varla is a middle-aged Indian Mick-Jagger-type (parentheses and acronym alert, wait a moment Mick Jagger is now an OAP!) gangster cum restaurateur cum Duke Theseus.

He has captured the initially Scottish Hippolyta (Meow Meow clad in leopard skin slinky dress and coat) from a rival although she, by the end of the play, having brought her stilletos to the conference table, changes nationality.

A Glasto Indian sixth-former Hermia (AnjanaVasan) and an indy Brit wannabe Kerouac cum Brando cum Calvin Klein pecs' Lysander (Edmund Derrington) plan to elope. While a Brooks Brothers' (we really should get sponsorship for this!) ambitious smoothie Demetrius (Ncuti Gatwa), rather sinister in setting his sights on Hermia, is pursued by his old flame (and first aider - don't ask, go see!) Helenus (no. it's not a spelling error, it's Ankur Bahl!).

Bottom is the male cock of the walk surrounded by lady volunteers (*Minor Quibble Alert* he could insure he has a few all-eventualities' put-downs for good-natured heckles when he poses rhetorial questions to the audience!). 

And they are a comely bunch of variously talented am dram menials from Bottom's vainglorious would-be Olivier, via Snout's (Alex Tregear) ingeniously "wittiest partition" cereal packet wall to the rather proficient Thisbe/Flute (a hard call to make clear an amateur is really rather good but Margaret Ann Bain pulls it off). 

But wait - we can't forget the faerie world and mischieviously Puckish (surely a tautology?!) Puck (Katy Owen) - part Pinocchio, part Tinker Bell - who also transforms herself into stern father in a wheelchair Egeus cum gangsta ?music producer with Sophia Loren sunglasses. 

Voodoo zombie fairies (Nandi Bhebhe, also Metro-reading Starveling) and Cobweb (Tibu Fortes), amongst others, do Oberon and Titania's bidding with Varla and Meow as is usual doubling up the royal roles. 

We're past the time of phrases such as "unashamedly populist" (why should it be anything else?). There have been enough updatings and adaptations of Shakespeare to make even a Globe in-joke about "fidelity to text" a wee bit dépassé when it's now broadcast in your own series or be damned in the groves of academe. But it's all none the worse for that. 

Maybe Bottom's transformation into an ass scene - seen by your Pen and Tell twosome in broad daylight - could have been more magical but, again, that's a minor quibble (we've had enough of alerts - once used they're no longer a novelty!). 

A great bubble of laughter and little toots of pleasure from TLT's sidekick engulfed The Globe (with even a bit of Bowie and was that a touch of cod Sondheim?!) in this first production of a new regime. Tanika Gupta's lyrics  and dramaturgy including a smidgeon of John Donne acknowledging the new Globe's American origins and Stu Barker's music prove charming crowd pleasers. 

So we take away a green light served up by The Globe's "wedding special" menu and wish the happy coupling well!