Katy Owen as Puck.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play that responds well to experimentation and playfulness and in this summer’s production at Shakespeare’s Globe it got plenty of both. This is a loud, full hearted, boisterous account of the play which means that some of the quiet magic that can, and should, be there is lost but it still works beautifully. In her first production it is already clear that the new artistic director of the Globe, Emma Rice, understands exactly how this unusual and potentially exciting space works and what can be done there. This is a brave production which takes risks and they pay off. If young people don’t like this version of the Dream then there is no hope. Before name checking Bon Jovi and Hoxton hipsters during a Shakespeare play you had better know what you are doing or you are going to look like a dad dancer, but the sold out audiences this summer have been delighted and in spite of it not being quite my own personal idea of the dream so was I. It had so much energy and joy that you just had to give in to it and admit that it worked.
Sometimes you see a performance in a particular Shakespeare play, after watching a good few productions, where you think yes, that’s it, finally, that’s how it should be, and Katy Owen as Puck did that for me. She was a bundle of energy, vulnerable, sweet, cute, capricious, totally in thrall to Oberon. I have never seen that relationship so clearly thought through. It was both moving and a little bit disturbing. She was a star.
The cabaret artist Meow Meow played Titania and she looked and sounded fabulous. A real diva who was every inch a fairy Queen. Her first entrance was a joy!
Meow Meow as Titania.
Bottom and the fairies.
There has been a lot of talk about one of the four lovers, Helena being played as a gay man- I’m not sure why. Ankur Bahl gave a perfectly judged performance as Helenus- never over the top as it could so easily have been- and his dance with Hermia early on was a classic. It worked so well that you really didn’t have to make any allowances for the change at all and in some ways it made the ending for the four lovers more moving as Demetrius came to recognise his true self.
The rude mechanicals were very funny in Pyramus and Thisbe but I think that perhaps they lost some of their effect given that the whole production was very full on throughout. I really liked Alex Tregear as Snout-especially when she played wall with her little face shining out from her cereal boxes.
All the music, composed by Stu Barker, was beautifully judged and performed. The sitar and oboe had exactly the right kind of ethereal quality. I also loved Moritz Junge’s costume design which fused Indian and Elizabethan elements with modern street style. Everything came together to make an aesthetic of its own, with a lovely little puppet version of Titania’s Indian changeling child setting the tone. We could have been anywhere and nowhere which is a always a good place to be when watching a timeless Shakespeare comedy if you get it right.
I was really grateful to be able to see the final performance of this production via a nicely directed high quality live stream. For once I almost felt as if I was there among the groundlings whose rapt faces I could see.
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