Reader Reviews
A Midsummer Night's Dream (Open Air Theatre, West End)
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 | Well, this turned out to be rather better than I had feared after the really bad Macbeth at the Open Air, but this production also has some uncalled for alterations to the text which made little or no sense, such as some scattered instances where "thou" is turned into "you" and "that" becomes "this" for whatever reason. Even so, it's a much better production than Macbeth, which is puzzling as it's pretty much the same people involved in both productions, but I guess that only shows how much depends on the director, as this play was directed by Christopher Luscombe. This one did have more compelling performances, especially from the rustics as a group, and their production of "Pyramus and Thisbe" in the last act, which is often rather dull in performance despite it being meant to be funny, turns out to be the highlight of the evening. Mark Meadows as Oberon (and Theseus) is very good, but Sarah Woodward as Titania and Hippolyta doesn't really match his performance, especially her Titania, which is at times so crude that it's like having Doll Tearsheet masquerading as the Fairy Queen. The boy that the two are arguing about is here a grown man, which makes it a little odd when Titania talks about him as a "child" and a "boy", and we're quite clearly shown that her interest in him is of a more physical nature. The four young lovers are fairly good, even if Olivia Darnley makes for a very hoarse Hermia at times. The setting is a sort of marble amphitheatre that evokes ancient Athens, even if the characters are dressed in 19th century clothes, and this works nicely for the scenes when characters need to be onstage sleeping, while others are playing their scenes. After the hilarious Pyramus and Thisbe sequence, which is very much a case of amateur night at the forum, the ending is something of an anticlimax. Theseus and Hippolyta exit, but when the actors return as Oberon and Titania they haven't changed into the fairies' costumes, instead they have added a sort of a bow (which seems to be a way of representing fairy wings as this is how Puck is dressed throughout the play) to the back of their Theseus/Hippolyta clothes. The difference in appearance is so slight that it's hardly noticeable, and it rather gives you the impression that it's Theseus and Hippolyta that are directing the fairies at the end, and I wonder if the people that weren't terribly familiar with the the details of the play didn't come away believing just that. //Jenny - Jenny | 17 Jul 07 |
| I caught Christopher Luscombe's new production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Open Air Theatre last night. It's a mixed bag, but the overriding quality is that it IS funny is all the right places - very funny indeed, in fact (in contrast to Tim Supple's ludicrously overpraised poly-Asian nonsense) and that alone should be a draw. The text is also very well delivered, with great attention to diction, rhythm and nuance. To start with the positives: Ian Talbot dusts off his famous Bottom (what an image) to fabulous effect. He is hysterically funny, and Chris Emmett as Quince - and all the other Mechanicals, in fact - are ideal comic foils. This is one of the best Pyramus & Thisbes I've seen (and I've seen a few) and - wonder of wonders - there isn't a donkey-dingle-dangle in sight. But what ears... Mark Meadows and Sarah Woodward (de latter wid a bad cowd in de dose...?) have courtly bearing both vocally and physically as Theseus/Oberon and as Hippolyta/Titania, and the four lovers are vividly differentiated - particularly Sam Alexander's Lysander and Hattie Ladbury's galumphing Helena, who is Joyce Grenfell to the life. But there's no getting away from the downsides, most of which involve half-baked Concepts. First of all, for some unaccountable reason the cast has been built round a company of actor-musicians; yet after a dodgily played and utterly superfluous overture we never again see any of the clarinets (which belong to Puck, Theseus and Lysander), nor Helena's violin, nor many other of the listed instruments. Admittedly, the Mechanicals wheel out their accordion/euphonium etc. from time to time, and the fairies all play pan pipes and whistles, but the rest? All very odd. I can't help thinking that the actor-musician concept is best left to John Doyle. Then there is the Uranian bit. Christopher Luscombe is not the first director to introduce a homo-erotic relationship between Oberon and Puck, but at least his predecessors had had the courage of their convictions. Luscombe's barely coherent programme note points out that the Victorians were fascinated by Parnassian ideals, but then moves quite randomly to homosexuality in ancient Greece before making an puzzling jump-cut to Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas... honestly, it made my head spin - and that was before the show started. And how does all that relate to what happens onstage? Well, the evening's single set is a mock-Greek amphitheatre; however, it is peopled not by Greeks but by Victorians (Geddit?). Puck, when he apears, is a languid, epicene youth who flirts lazily with other languid, epicene fairies... until the production moves on and that whole subtheme is jettisoned like the actor-musicians' instruments. He has a cuddle with Oberon from time to time, but it's only lip service (as it were). I could go on, about both the good and the bad, but you get the drift. Don't get me wrong: I really enjoyed the evening. But it could have been so much more if it had been properly thought through. - Job | 31 May 07 |
