Review: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Theatre Royal Bath)
Jose Mourhino classifies the perfect result as a 1-0 victory to his team. For all but the most fanatical fan, however, it can feel a little dull. Alternatively there is little more frustrating than seeing your team crash 4-3 with a last minute winner from the opposition. This is what Laurence Boswell's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream feels like: full of moments to make a fan jump out of their seat but just as many that will make them tear their hair out.
Boswell's production sets its stall out from the get go in his decision to play it as broad as a Coney Island pier show. All the action stretches the scenes as far as they can go. The insistence on heightened theatricality means that there are moments when you just want it to breathe. This is especially true of Simon Gregor's Puck, who turns the Merry Wanderer of the Night, from mischievous imp into a horrifying sprite. This is not a fairy you want to get on the wrong side of and his twisted creature routine threatens to overbalance everything else in the forest.
So too Phill Jupitus' Bottom, who, especially in his first entrance, threatens to steal all focus away. His weaver has not got to the top of this group of mechanicals through talent but by sheer force of personality. Yet as he settles down, he proves an adept interpreter of the verse and his conversational tone draws the audience on side. Forbes Masson as the frustrated director, Ekow Quartey as the massive in stature but small in voice Snout and Oscar Batterham as the cross dressing Thisbe all make impressions around him. The final play goes big, lacks nous but is undeniably funny.
The lovers are great fun, William Postlewaithe is a skinny-jeaned, swaggering hipster as Demetrius while Maya Wasowicz earns her title as 'nymph', showing she's not averse to the rough treatment in her pursuit of true love. They're both so sexy that you wonder why their destiny isn't each other instead of the conventional beauties of Eve Ponsonby's Hermia and Wilf Scolding's Demetrius. The fight scene in the woods between the four is a Buster Keaton slapstick delight.
Darrell D'Silva brings class and gravity to Oberon while the brilliant Katy Stephens is a beguiling and wondrous Titania, her speaking of the verse soars and shows her as one of our most brilliant contemporary interpreters of Shakespeare. Jamie Vartan's white box set invokes Peter Brook's legendary production, though it feels more comfortable once it opens up onto the forest glades. Gregor's final 'If we shadows have offended' is spoken beautifully, it almost grabs the equaliser, but the show ultimately drops an inch wide.
A Midsummer Night's Dream plays at Bath Theatre Royal until the 20 August.
