Do wrap up warm, it's awfully cold by act two…
Global warming may well have kissed the edge of most of the United Kingdom, however, in Scotland, once the sun disappears, it does begin to get rather chilly. Having said that, I was sitting amongst a number of seasoned theatregoers for Bard in the Botanics who had already read the memo, indeed probably had written it as well as knitted the cardigan for the evening and come well prepared.
For over two decades, Bard in the Botanics under Gordon Barr has braved the elements of a Scottish summer to provide us with Shakespeare under the canopy of leafy suburbs and beauty in the shape of the Botanical Gardens in Glasgow.
Kicking off their Shakespearean element of this year's festival comes A Midsummer Night's Dream. Staged next to one of the hot houses, we have a haphazardly curtained stage in front of us suggesting that this patchwork quilt be a backdrop to Athens. It mirrors the patchwork emotional rollercoaster that we're about to engage in. Along with the gender change of Oberon taking from Titania the narrative arc of falling for Bottom, after being entranced by Puck's powder, we have a number of wonderfully well-imagined set pieces.
It could be argued that A Midsummer Night's Dream depends very much upon who plays Puck and who plays Bottom, but here I was reminded not just of how important it is to have all four young character actors—Helena (Star Penders), Hermia (Lola Aluko), Demetrius (James Kane) and Lysander (Aryaman Jain)—play up to their parts, but also just exactly why it is that Peter Quince (Bailey Newsome) is such a fantastic role.
This is a performance where everybody depends upon each other to platform the comedy. Of course, like all comedies, particularly Shakespearean ones, it has to end with the status quo being returned to, and this is a deftly directed piece of theatre which is a damn good night out.
Oberon (James Boal) may be ripped, Bottom (Alan Steele) stopped from roaring his greatest, but it is a romp through the narrative that sparkles in the greenery. As Titania and the Queen, Claire Macallister shines, holding both the beauty of the characterisation but also the poison of jealousy that came with both. As Bottom, Alan Steele gives us a captivated man wooed by a fairy King doubling as the troubled father of Hermia, wishing to have Lysander as a son-in-law, but when he is Bottom, it is that inner ability to tap into a Scottish tradition oft seen in pantomime—like a Walter Carr of his time. Puck (Benjamin Keachie) is wholly impish, and the direction allows him to wander and be the wee keech he needs to be, striding with a gallusness that gets it tellt, like it needs to be. The asides with Glaswegian swagger kiss the text, but also nod to the auditorium as if to say, it’s Shakespeare guys and it shall be as we know it.
By the end, a number of the audience had risen from their seats to give an open-air standing ovation, as the cast clearly enjoyed both the opportunity to perform but also the backdrop in which they found themselves the joy of performance.
Evening in twilight, perhaps with a few midges thrown in for good measure, this is an experience where the words manage to come across this natural little amphitheatre in a way that does not require amplification. It is a testimony to the performance that they do not require any microphones. Their physical beings, joy of performance and how they keep the pace and the tonal changes work so well. Costume is a little haphazard, mixing styles but preparing for the individuality of each character. It works.
The physicality envelops the words and the sentiments, adding to the understanding of it, making it a night under the moodily lit nightscape, and from a dreamlike state—warmed by the experience rather than the sun—from which we woke and as we left through the gates and out into the hustle and the bustle which for a two-hour passage on that stage had been so far away as to be as distant as the sunshine will often be, it chased more than just the blues away.