5 STARS, July 17-21. The latest production of “The Dream” by Richmond Shakespeare Society in the Fountain Gardens at York House begins like a clanking rusty engine but ends as a triumph for community theatre, says Simon Collins
The location is exceptional. Outside on such a night as this, endless and balmy, the shadowy trees swaying, romance in every bloom, Venus shining in the twilight, there are so many performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream across the length and breadth of England, from castle grounds to the smooth lawns of stately homes, that one is as much participating in a national ritual, like Pimm’s at Wimbledon or carols at Christmas, as entering the faeryland of fiction.
How to jazz up this old turnip and awaken the senses of the audience to a comedy of love told in exquisite poetry? In the atmospheric gardens of York House next to the river at Twickenham, the solution is… a 1940s Steampunk version.
On your way back to visit that curious mind of the northern Renaissance in 16th century Europe pause in the Victorian era and imagine an alternative history in which technology never gets beyond steam power. Now travel forward to the late 1940s and begin the play.
The result is a stylistic overlay. The fairies look like Friday-night party girls, the humans are in wartime fashions. As ever Shakespeare is impervious to costumes and peculiar stage furniture – here something like a disused locomotive as the backdrop and a large metal circle to indicate the power of the Moon. Unless Shakespeare is performed as a museum piece this is inevitable. The director, Simon Bartlett, told me he needed an idea large enough to accommodate both the fairy’s magical forest as well as a real world having a context of martial conflict for Theseus and Hippolyta. He achieves this with a light touch.
What most counts is clarity and nuance of diction accompanied by appropriate acting in the dramatic situations emerging from the plot. Last night this left a lot to be desired. Fortunately, though all are amateurs and enjoyable, the cast includes several notably talented players, including Francesca Ellis as Puck, and Ben Collingwood Best as Oberon; outstanding was the Bottom of Francis Abbott.
Amateurs cannot compete with the vocal and stage skills of professionals any more than park players could face a premier league football team. For a company as rooted in the community as the RSS this hardly matters since theatre, unlike the written word or film, thrives on living moments of drama enacted as experiences of collective imagination. Reification, the local habitation, of drama is its essence.
Relatives, friends and neighbours in the community bring their own seats, wine and something to eat expecting only a pleasant summer entertainment. Yet in the end this expectation was far exceeded. The final play within the play of the rude mechanicals, ‘The Most Lamentable Comedy, and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe,’ amounted to a madcap masterpiece. It was truly hilarious, and when finished with Puck’s sweet valedictory speech brought the evening to a very satisfying conclusion.
Midsummer Night’s Dream is at York Gardens, Twickenham until Saturday July 21. For tickets, visit: richmondshakespeare.org.uk
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