Tag Archives: William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream – 4 Stars

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Watermill

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Watermill Theatre

Reviewed – 14th May 2018

★★★★

“Artistic Director Paul Hart and his youthful players have magnificently overcome the twin risks of over-familiarity and complacency in this joyful new production”

 

Buried deep in the English countryside is a little theatre that consistently beguiles. The 200-seat Watermill just outside Newbury stages its own plays twelve times each year. Casts live together throughout every production and shows are marked by both excellent ensemble work and by high levels of creativity and innovation.

But how to shine new light on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream? ‘I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows’. And so do we all, for the play is a favourite of almost every outdoor theatre season, consistently ranking in the top three of all the Bard’s thirty seven plays. We love to laugh again (and again) at the play within a play, with its hackneyed ‘rude mechanicals’, two fingers held up to make another chink in the wall.

Watermill Artistic Director Paul Hart and his youthful players have magnificently overcome the twin risks of over-familiarity and complacency in this joyful new production. Appropriately enough for a play about make-believe, the show opens with a shadowy view of theatre fly ropes, part of a stage design by Kate Lias. Rope tricks of various kinds help make the magic in this celebratory show which also has a strong commitment to diversity.

Sign language is an integral part of the production, since the cast includes a co-founder of the Deaf & Hearing Theatre Company in a speaking role. Sophie Stone’s partially signed scenes with Evening Standard award winning Tyrone Huntley are delightful, the signing very much enhancing the show. As well as being a witty and persuasive actor, Tyrone Huntley has a fine singing voice. Singing and signing also combine in a moving ensemble number after the interval.

There’s more magic in the mix when shadow play begins behind a spangly red curtain that descends rapidly to transform the enchanted wood into a nightclub. It’s a good setting for some witty musical interpolations. Is this the first Midsummer Night’s Dream to feature Rodgers and Hart’s ‘Blue Moon’? In other scenes the always engaging Eva Feiler as Puck cleverly works dolls to underline the point that we are witnessing a dream time, engineered by otherworldly creatures for their own amusement.

Victoria Blunt was brilliant as Bottom, switching from broad Lancashire to a booming Gielgud parody as the most thespish of the ‘rude mechanicals’ who finally get to perform their play within a play right at the end of the show.

As Oberon, ‘King of Shadows’ Jamie Satterthwaite seemed at first a little too insubstantial for the patriarchal world of Athens where a father let alone a king of the fairies ‘should be as a god’ but he gained authority as the evening went on.
Some careful cuts and rearrangements are characteristic of the close reading that’s evidently gone into a show that quite bursts with ideas. The night this reviewer saw it, Emma McDonald’s role as Titania was magnificently covered at very short notice by Rebecca Lee. She appeared to be all but word-perfect, with a vampish authority that was most engaging. Her substitution may have understandably explained a slightly hectic breathlessness that characterised more than one scene in the performance I saw.

The show ends in a magnificently farcical version of ‘Pyramus & Thisbe’, the play within. Talented Offue Okegbe doubles Snout and Theseus, as well as playing an instrument, like many other cast members. His ‘wall’ is much too funny a surprise to spoil in this review. Joey Hickman was an owlish Demetrius as well as the show’s musical director.

But for a bizarrely unexpected flash of light across the crowd, Tom White’s lighting design was highly effective, particularly so in the final scene ‘If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumbered here While these visions did appear.’

On press night, a good part of the audience came whooping to its feet at the end of this big-hearted and dazzling show. Cast and a large supporting crew, including magic, movement and BSL advisers, all deserve huge congratulation for their contributions to such a delightful Dream.

 

Reviewed by David Woodward

Photography by Scott Rylander

 


A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Watermill Theatre until 16th June

 

Related
Previously reviewed at this venue
Teddy | ★★★★★ | January 2018
The Rivals | ★★★★★ | March 2018
Burke & Hare | ★★★★ | April 2018

 

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Much Ado about Nothing – 4 Stars

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Giedroyc

Much Ado about Nothing

Rose Theatre Kingston

Reviewed – 18th April 2018

★★★★

“an explosive, enigmatic and enticing night at the theatre”

 

Almost a triumph, Simon Dormandy’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ proves both accessible and aspirational. The production overflows with clarity as the clearly capable cast generally ignore Shakespeare’s iambs and focus on providing the audience with the opportunity to understand every word. This is no mean feat in a play renowned for its complexity in that so much of its dialogue is reported action, instead of demonstrated drama.

Meanwhile, it is no secret that this production’s appeal for many lies in its starry headline. Mel Giedroyc steps into her first Shakespearean role with confidence and cleverness as her aptitude in making the funny even funnier doesn’t go unnoticed. She never misses an opportunity to reward the audience with a giggle and Beatrice’s scathing wit rolls off her tongue with great naturalism. She does, however, at times appear awkward in her movement; and seems unable to remain still and truthful in some moments of drama. The production relies, for example, on simplicity, stillness and honesty when Claudio outrageously confronts Hero on their wedding day, but Giedroyc’s overacting risks the integrity of such a potentially crushing scene.

John Hopkins shines as Benedick with a hearty, loveable and yet somehow roguish performance and Kate Lamb boldly proves that Hero is not the doormat she is often believed to be. A special mention must be afforded to Calam Lynch’s Claudio. It is Lynch’s theatrical debut and his boyish innocence works in tandem with his steely conviction to illicit a truly astonishing portrayal of a young man desperate to love.

The one let down of the production comes in the form of its anticlimactic finale. As Shakespeare’s final reveal of the alive and well Hero ought to dominate and provide a joyous final scene, the audience remained as unmoved as the characters did. With so little a reaction from those on stage, it seems too much for Dormandy to ask his audience to react at all.

The production handles the comedic moments of this iconic play with intellect and bravery, but generally struggles with the more serious scenes. A bizarre dance in the second wedding scene confuses the audience, but the superb on-stage band delights them throughout. The saving grace for the play lies in its cast. The four lead actors bounce refreshingly off of each other and provide an explosive, enigmatic and enticing night at the theatre.

 

Reviewed by Sydney Austin

Photography by Mark Douet

 


Much Ado about Nothing

Rose Theatre Kingston until 6th May

 

 

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