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Youth Theatre Reviews |
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A Midsummer Night's DreamBy William Shakespeare "You're doing a sixty mile round-trip to see a youth theatre doing Shakespeare - on a Saturday night?" The implication, of course, is that there is something inferior about youth theatre and that giving up one's Saturday night to see a YT production is a major sacrifice. But there is nothing inferior about youth theatre, but I have to admit that it and Shakespeare don't usually fit well together. And Dream is the sort of play that YTs do because it seems to be pretty easy. And this is an unusual youth theatre: there is no adult involvement at all; everything, including direction, is done by the memebrs, the majority of whom are 16/17. So the brave face ("What's wrong with that? If it's good theatre, it's good theatre!") hid a fairly large amount of uncertainty. It was good theatre! Not good youth theatre, just good theatre. I have seen many, many productions of Dream - including one youth production which was so cringingly bad that I still break out into a sweat of embarrassment thinking about it - but I have never seen one in which the Lovers, who are usually, to be honest, a bit of a bore - were so believable. As usual, Shakespeare got it right: it's just that usually they are too old and played too romantically (which is the closest word I can think of to describe it at this time of night!). These lovers were teenagers. They were full of energy, subject to massive mood-swings, ready to fly off the handle at any suggestion of criticism or opposition. Just normal teenagers! And it worked superbly. Their arguments degenerated into some of the most hilariously choreographed fights I have ever seen: flailing arms and even a headbut (from Hermia!). The audience roared and applauded, and quite right too. They were funny and yet very realistic. The Mechanicals, too, were very funny, but without being over-the-top, as they are sometimes played, and without following what we might call traditional characterisation. Josh Mason's Peter Quince had all the pretensions of the would-be "artistic type", even to the white scarf casually thrown around his neck, whilst Daniel Hill's Bottom was brighter than usual, which made him all the more funny. Hill knows how to work an audience, too: he has a definite talent for comic acting. The Fairies - with the obvious exception of Titania - were all male (most unusual) and the director had, wisely, cut some of the lines which today we find unbearably twee, and, when Titania fell for the transformed Bottom, they picked him up and flung him on the bed. She leapt on him - a bit like a comic porn movie! The most difficult part of the play to bring off are the scenes between Theseus and Hippolyta (doubled, as almost always, with Oberon and Titania), especially the first scene which has a fair amount of scene-setting to do. In this production there was real tension between them: Hippolyta seemed greatly displeased at being wooed with Theseus' sword and not at all happy about the marriage. It's an interesting idea, but one for which I can find no real justification in the text, and her sudden compliance on the day of the wedding is unconvincing. But this was the only part of this interpretation with which I would take issue. There are criticisms, of course, both of the interpretation and the performances, but they are insignificant in comparison with what director Robert Icke (who also played Theseaus/Oberon in a voice somewhat reminiscent of a young Ian McKellen) and his team of 13 to 19 year olds have achieved. To have the audience roaring with perfectly genuine laughter and spontaneously applauding individual scenes is no mean feat. This is an exceptional group.
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