A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM by William Shakespeare Theatre Royal York

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
by William Shakespeare

Theatre Royal York In rep to 17 November 2001
Runs 2hr 40min One interval

TICKETS 01904 623568
Review Timothy Ramsden 22 September

Visually and musically sophisticated revival emphasises the inter-working of the mundane and spirit worlds.
Opening grouch: It’s not often a curtain literally goes up on a Shakespeare production today, but it’s right the red plush rose to reveal – well, on Saturday night in the Circle it was the signal for group upon group of late arriving audience members. In they came in their twos, threes and fours with a symphony of auditorium doors creaking open then slapping shut, ushers whispering, more creaking in the aisles as people took their seats. By the time this had finished Theseus and Hippolita were all but done and the plot underway.

Anyone can be late – that’s not the point. Many of the people were barely late and must have been at least on their way up to the Circle – certainly inside the building. Why on earth did the theatre allow the performance to start when it must have known there were people to seat? It meant the audience members concerned missed the opening and had to creep to their seats in the dark, while already seated people were disturbed. The noise could well have been enough to reach to the actors too, hardly making for a concentrated opening.

All this is bad enough but most directors say they want to introduce new audiences to Shakespeare (and there were several young people there). You don’t do this when the plot’s being set up against this rival auditorium sideshow

A shame, for co-directors Damian Cruden and Lucy Pitman-Wallace have an elegant, intelligent production opening in a formal, oriental palace, backed by a seven-door wall and with a dominant swimming-pool. It’s here the fairy world makes waves. A tent descends to the water, which becomes Titania’s bower and later a resting place for Oberon and Puck, and where the four Athenian lovers splash out their conflicts.

Dawn Allsopp’s designs and Richard G. Jones’ lighting contribute massively to the play; the lovers’ pure white weeds of Athens are progressively coloured with the warm red and orange of the fairy kingdom, colours played out in the rich wash behind the opened doors of imaginative perception, and in a forest of hanging lanterns. Meanwhile, Christopher Madin’s music, thumps, echoes and wallows in the changing moods.

Such theatricality is suited to the spirit world and at first it seems the earth-bound Mechanicals are less well integrated. It’s hard to see in what society Nicola Smythe’s peak-capped staff-of-office bearing Quince might team up with Suzy Cooper’s ever-beaming, halitosis-afflicted Snout.
They come into focus presenting Pyramus and Thisbe. Their stage is set on the boarded-over pool: the one overtly theatrical part of this Dream is the one where solid ground buries the flow of imagination. As props and costumes go astray or cause confusion, the Mechanicals’ show turns into an Elizabethan Noises Off.

Malcolm Scates is a self-confident Bottom, his fingers shaping the several beards he might wear; Puck’s spell merely brings out the braying ass in him. Gareth Tudor Price makes a commanding Oberon; his long figure rises aggressively from a crouch, until developing kinder, subtler movements. Among the lovers, Katherine Kelly’s Hermia and James Garnon’s Lysander especially show naïve young Athenians of sheltered upbringings who overnight learn a lot about themselves.

Theseus/Oberon: Gareth Tudor Price
Hippolyta/Titania: Andrina Carroll
Egeus/Peaseblossom/Starveling: Carlene Reed
Hermia/Snug: Katherine Kelly
Lysander: James Garnon
Demetrius: Ben Warwick
Helena: Nicola Barber
Philostrate/Puck: Michael Glenn Murphy
Cobweb/ Peter Quince: Nicola Smythe
Moth/Flute: Abby Ford
Mustardseed/Snout: Suzy Cooper
Nick Bottom: Malcolm Scates

Co-Directors: Damian Cruden/Lucy Pitman-Wallace
Designer: Dawn Allsopp
Composer: Christopher Madin
Lighting: Richard G. Jones
Sound: Matt Savage
Fight director: Richard Ryan

2001-09-24 11:49:29