A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. Northampton to 25 May.

Northampton

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
by William Shakespeare

Royal Theatre To 25 May 2002
Mon-Sat 7.30
Runs 2hr 15min One interval

TICKETS 01604 624 811
Review Timothy Ramsden 16 May

A light, brisk flight through the night, with many virtues.This brisk, heftily-cut production opens and closes in an oriental court, which, though colourful, is quite wrong. Fortunately the cast allow their voices and movement to follow the assertive and negotiating aspects of the language rather than be bound by the very different world of ritualised totalitarianism the setting suggests.

But there's an enjoyable, clear approach, once we've left for the freer world of the forest. Only Daniel Copeland's Bottom keeps a sense of oriental sage as he sits cross-legged and contemplative while Miltos Yerolemou's Peter Quince tries to organise a rehearsal. He clearly impresses his friends; everyone's eyes swivel to catch Bottom's verdict on the fine points of their intended production. And this keen amateur Thespian's acquired a whole stock of beards to fit any role that comes along.

Yet, in the play-within-a-play Thisbe upstages Pyramus, who performs the difficult feat of shoving more vitality into his post-death twinges and convulsions than into his living character. There again, the comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe comes close to upstaging the Dream itself.

That it doesn't is due largely to infectious performances by the young lovers, including Zoe Bywater's moto perpetuo mouthed Hermia and Georgina Roberts' Helena, perched precipitously on high-built shoes. There's no doubting the physicality of male desire, or its opposite – caught in Demetrius' look of bad-taste disgust when Lysander mentions his ex-lover Hermia.

The fairies are magical creatures, portrayed by concertina-ing lanterns bouncing on the ends of wires. They create a sense of lightness and mischief, the spooky spirits of the woods. And the shadowy magic of the supernatural links to the court setting as non-human presences are backed by an invisibly operated light-coloured shade flickering open and shut like some flying creature of the night. The magic's completed by the simple device of giving a clownish red nose to anyone inflicted with the love drug, removed only with its antidote.

It might not add up to the most detailed, or deep, Dream on record but Northampton scores highly for accessibility, elegance and freshness in this meeting of corporeal and spiritual elements in human society and desire.

Theseus/Oberon: Dominic Colchester
Hippolyta/Titania: Virginia Clay
Lysander/Snout: Dennis Herdman
Demetrius/Quince: Miltos Yerolemou
Hermia/Snug: Zoe Bywater
Helena/Flute: Georgina Roberts
Egeus/Bottom: Daniel Copeland
Puck: Asta Sighvats

Director: Rosanna Lowe
Designer: Diego Pitarch
Lighting: Paul Dennant
Composer/Musical Director: Peter Joucia

2002-05-21 17:15:33