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The RSC's DreamDateline: 17th November, 1999 Of all Shakespeare's plays - except, perhaps, Romeo and Juliet - A Midsummer Night's Dream is perhaps the most challenging to produce, because it is so easy to create a production which is only distinct from the vast majority of others because of the quality of the performances. After all, there are so many clear signals to the director; the warmth of midsummer, a great classical hero and heroine, fairies and magic, love eventually triumphant, the woodland, comic working-class characters, humour, pathos, romance... But director Michael Boyd does not follow this path. In the first scene we see snow falling and the citizens of Athens are all in their winter clothes: overcoats, scarves, hats and gloves are all worn. A shock, certainly, for this is Midsummer. Is Boyd part of a long line of directors who turn everything upside down just to be different? Not at all, for there is textual evidence for his interpretation. In Act II, Scene 1, when Titania and Oberon meet, we hear of the dissension between them because of the "little Indian boy" and the effect it has had: ......We see The estrangement between the King and Queen of the fairies has caused the same kind of upset in the natural world that we hear about in Macbeth at the death of Duncan: The night has been unruly: where we lay Later in the play, after the lovers have been lost in the forest, we see further effects of this disturbance. They are first dishevelled, then dirty, then filthy, with clothes torn and hair a mess. This is no romantic woodland but a real forest with muddy ground and trees which catch at and tear clothes. There is a kind of enforced jollity in the first scene, with Philostrate orchestrating applause for what Theseus says, and a tension between Theseus and Hippolyta, which goes well with the way their relationship began: Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword, Thus the beginning of this production is unsettling to those who (think they) know the play, amongst which number I would have counted myself before 4th November! I found myself wanting to resist this "new" interpretation. This was not the play I knew so well. And yet I began to realise - perhaps it is closer to the truth to say that I was forced to realise - that it is entirely consistent with the text. I have always though that the traditional picture of the fairies - which is not traditional at all, but Victorian - is wrong for this play. They are not the sweet, gossamer-winged, tutu-wearing little people of romantic imagery, but amoral and self-centred. I have never seen Puck as mischievous but as quite nasty. He delights in spoiling things - ......Are you not he- and despises human beings: Lord, what fools these mortals be! But Boyd goes further. It is very common for Theseus and Oberon and Hipployta and Titania to be doubled, but Boyd carries this even further. Philostrate becomes Puck and the citizens of Athens, who make up Shakespeare's "chorus", become the rest of the fairies. These fairies are wild. There is a rampant sexuality and sense of anarchy about them, so that at our first meeting with them (How now, Spirit! Whither wander you?), we see the Spirit taking as much delight in Puck's "pranks" as he does, and clearly desperate to seduce him. In fact, these fairies are the citizens of Athens with all inhibitions removed and their civilised veneer stripped away. As I say, I have always thought that the fairies should be like this, but the doubling, I felt, was a master stroke! Boyd's production is kinder to the "rude mechanicals" than I have seen in the past. They are generally played in such a way that the laughter is against them: it is the cruel laughter of snobbery, social and intellectual. Hippolyta protests as their being treated like this, but nonetheless joins in the snide comments made at their expense during the performance of Pyramus and Thisbe. Their well-meaning devotion to the Duke tends to be shoved to one side by directors determined the extract the last laugh out of what is essentially innocence but which tends to be portrayed as stupidity. Not so here. In this production they are not idiots, just well meaning men who want to celebrate their Duke's wedding day by performing a play which they think he will enjoy. The trouble is, they're just not very good! I liked this interpretation, because it reinforces the differences between the human and the fairy. It maintains the human civilisation which is so different from the self-centredness of the fairies. You might ask how that fits with the ending in which the fairies bless the bridal bed of Theseus and Hippolyta, but there is no contradiction here. We have already heard, in the first conversation between Oberon and Titania, of their feelings for Theseus and Hipployta. Titania taunts him with The bouncing Amazon ... your warrior love, whilst Oberon replies with a reference to thy love to Theseus. The Performances No matter how interesting or ground-breaking the interpretation, if the performances are not up to scratch, then the play fails. So how does this RSC company measure up? I confess that, knowing Nicholas Jones (Theseus/Oberon) best through his playing Jeremy Aldermartin in ITV's Kavanagh QC, I had my doubts about him. The idea of a thin, bald middle-aged man as Theseus seemed just a little perverse to me, but I have to say that my fears were not realised. He was strong and commanding, but with a softer side (even as Oberon), which emerged occasionally and gave him a more human feel. Most portrayals of Theseus I have seen have left the impression of someone who is a bit of a dull stick: no doubt very brave and heroic in action, but rather dull - even boring - as the ruler of Athens. Thjis was a more human Theseus than most - as human as the text allows him to be! In contrast, I had looked forward to Josette Simon as Hippolyta/Titania. She's a favourite actress - I fell in love with her in Blake's 7! - and I expected great things. In the event, I was a little disappointed. Hippolyta, of course, doesn't offer an actress much scope, but Titania does, and so I looked for real fireworks there. However I felt she had fallen into a typical RSC trap: her verse-speaking was beautiful, but that's what it was - verse-speaking - and too often it became divorced from the emtional power of the part. She was much better as Titania, but I still felt that there was an opportunity missed here. I reacted badly to Aidan McCardle's Puck initially, but I soon came to realise that the fault was not in him or his performance, but in me. I wanted a Puck who was downright nasty, who delighted in upset and chaos, and yet I was complaining to myself that he wasn't an Ariel-like figure. Once I recognised that the interpretation (which I so enthusiastically endorsed) required him to be earthy rather than ethereal, then I could enjoy his performance for the excellent piece of acting that it was. As far as the lovers are concerned, in most productions Lysdander and Demetrius are pale in comparison to Hermia and Helena, and certainly one feels that there is more for an actor to get hold of and build on in the women's parts than in the men's. So it was here, to an extent. Catherine Kanter's Hermia was all that one expects of this character and Hermione Gulliford managed the difficult feat of not making Helena a total airhead! (Incidentally, I loved the little touch of her losing the heel of one of her almost-stilettoes at the end of the scene in the woods!) But Fergus O'Donell (Lysander) and Henry Ian Cusick (Demetrius) avoided the stereotyping (Lysander is sympathetic and Demetrius pompous) which has come to be associated with the male lovers and they both had more character than the two cyphers which are the usual "interpretations".
To cast an actor who normally plays villains as Bottom was a bold move, but it paid off. Daniel Ryan gave a harder-edged performance than is usual in this part, so that he was not the usual pathetic figure of fun. I enjoyed his performance. As for the rest, I found Geoffrey Whitehead's Egeus a little weak, surprisingly for such an accomplished and experienced actor. The towering rage which is able to ask for the death of his daughter for disobedience was portrayed here as mere petulance, and, as such, did not convince. Strong support from the rest of the cast, good music unobtrusively performed, subtle lighting, and clever use of flying and trapdoors on an otherwise almost totally bare stage, all added to the impact of this first-rate production. I have seen so many RSC productions in the past in which unimaginative direction has been carried by good performances and clever design, that I now approach an RSC production with some wariness. I did so here, but my concerns proved unjustified, for it was a production which shed new light on a familiar (and, it has to be said, much loved) piece and had me laughing at things I had thought too familiar to find funny ever again. One last (good) thing: I took a party of 39 kids to see the performance, 31 of them Year 8 (12 years old), and they came away full of it! Words such as "great", "excellent", "brilliant" and "mint" (their highest compliment!) were bandied around in the bus back to school. We now have a class of Shakespeare enthusiasts - mint! Articles Indices: |
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