A Midsummer Night's Dream

Synopsis

On a midsummer's night Hermia and her lover Lysander flee from Athens and Demetrius - the man Hermia's father favours as a son-in-law. Demetrius follows, pursued by Helena who loves him in spite of being spurned in favour of Hermia. On the same night Bottom and his friends leave Athens to find somewhere quiet to rehearse their play which is to be performed at the wedding feast of Duke Theseus. Drawn into the woods they enter a world of magic, mystery and wonder.

Our Review:

14 March 2007

At first sight, the Roundhouse should be an appropriate venue for Tim Supple's sumptuous production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. This, after all, was the 1960s' temple to hedonism and free love – just the place to showcase all the production's sexuality; and there's plenty of it, at times it looks like a staged version of the Kama Sutra.

On top of that, there's ample space to show Sumant Jayakrishnan's design to best effect, as well as allowing the actors to display some gravity-defying ropework. No-one could accuse this multilingual ensemble of lacking ambition: Supple pulls off a near conjuring trick as he brings together actors, musicians and dancers, speaking seven different languages, into a coherent whole.

But while applauding the brilliance of the conception and the visual treat served up for us, something doesn’t quite gel. The Roundhouse's acoustics don’t help: when only half the text is in English, it's even more important that every word...

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Latest User Review

kathi - 13 May 2007:

all are politics but good to see.i agree with you .no fiove star...

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