A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. To 13 September.

Oxford.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
by William Shakespeare.

Headington Hill Park To 13 September 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm to 16 August; 7pm from 19 August no performance 18 August Mat Sat & 25 August 2pm 12pm 11 September.
Runs 2hr 25min One interval..

TICKETS: 01865 766266.
www.creationtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 7 August.

Lovers’ night out is show’s strength.
This promenade production in Oxford’s Headington Hill Park suggests an uncertain climate, the prospect of sharing the space with midges, and the discomfort of sitting on logs or standing still proves preferable for some perfectly sensible people to the limited legroom and stuffy spaces provided by too many theatres; adult audience members here commented on being first-time Dreamers.

Zoe Seaton’s production is well-geared to audiences new to the play. Quite heftily cut to under two-and-a-half hours, including walkabouts, it allows that the open-air might not help attention to long speeches. The action’s always moving forward, though several lyrical passages (“O happy fair”; “I know a bank”) survive. For visual stimulation, there’s a neatly-levitating Titania.

Things open briskly with Patrick O’Reilly’s Robin Goodfellow (the Puck of the Irish) setting a fast vocal and, impressively, physical pace as, as various points, he scurries through the park. This is a Puck who’d enjoy girdling the earth in 40 minutes, unlike many recent, more workshy sprites.

Less clear is Seaton’s reason for playing Hiipolyta/Titania in drag, Hippolyta barely speaking and shrouded in a veil as if the director’s hiding something. And, though Richard Neale’s Titania has a resonant voice arguing with Oberon, there’s a loss of sexual tension.

Andrew Hodges’ camp, squeaky Quince is a weak joke outworn long before the play’s really under way. Otherwise the Mechanicals do reasonably well, presenting a fair, if effortful ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’.

The production’s strongest suit is the quartet of lovers fled into the woods, the men subject to sudden changes of fancy under the influence of drugs, the women alarmed at suddenly being deserted (Hermia) or desired (Helena).

It shows how love, and men’s changeability, affects a female relationship that seems at least mutually tolerant since schooldays. The freshness of Anna Stranack’s Hermia and Hannah Summers’ Helena especially brings the characters to life, the accusations precise, the fighting stemming from the roots of their emotions.

And when Puck leads them “up and down” (made his favourite refrain here) and they whirl among the moving audience, there’s an unusually strong sense of being “wood within this wood”.

Lysander/Flute: Pete Ashmore.
Demetrius/Quince: Andrew Hodges.
Egeus/Bottom: Richard Kidd.
Hippolyta/Titania: Richard Neale.
Puck: Patrick O’Reilly.
Theseus/Oberon: Chris Porter.
Hermia/Snug: Anna Stranack.
Helena/Snout: Hannah Summers.

Director: Zoe Seaton.
Designer: Tomasin Cuthbert.
Movement: Aidan Treays.
Voice & Verse coach: Richard Ryder.
Costume: Diana Ennis.
Visual consultant: Paul McEneaney.

2008-08-16 00:32:10