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:

6 June 2002

Mike Alfreds' production of Shakespeare's pastoral romantic comedy opens with the actors lying on the stage, all in their nightwear, as if in an adult sleepover. The idea is presumably to emphasise the dreamlike nature of the play. But what are we to conclude? The costuming trick may make sense if it were solely about the events in the wood, but it stretches the concept to hold that the whole of the play is but a dream. The couples even get married in their nightwear - is that a dream too?

And if the whole thing is a dream; then why is Bottom transformed so sparsely? Instead of the hairy ass's head that the text specifically mentions, he sports a couple of feathers, two white bits of plastic and a paper cup on his nose (shades of Morecambe and Wise's Jimmy Durante impressions). Surely, if this were truly a fantastical dream, then the imaginations would conjure up a monstrously authentic ass's head?

Fortunately, the production benefits from the accomplished comic perfor...

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