Post by David J on Feb 27, 2016 19:12:32 GMT
This is a strange but entertaining production
At times it feels like The Midsummer That Goes Wrong with a smattering of One Man Two Guvnors. There are some moments that go on for ages like Quince coming on to introduce the play, with some ramblings about current issues that somehow can be related to this. He then says that Ian McKellan is starring as Bottom, and inevitably we find out that he's not appearing (he's stuck in a lift backstage). An audience member (played by Andrew Buckley) comes on to play Bottom, with no professional acting experience.
The comedy can be very slapstick at times, with the lovers turning their quarrel into a foodfight whilst Oberon and Puck watches on eating and drinking the groceries Bottom had bought.
There's also a very subversive undertone to this production. I know Midsummer is a fairy tale play, but the whole using the flower to make people love others they don't love in the first place doesn't sit well with me.
This production grasps this issue by the nettle. Rather than being the dominant king fairy, Jonathan Broadbent presents Oberon like a tyrannical child, dressed up as what he perceives to be Superman that Cat Simmons as the majestic Titania can only cringe at. He goes about his scheme at times sadistically. The love potion now comes in a squeezable sauce bottle, and when Puck comes on and puts the sleeping (or knocked out I think) Titania in this large sink at the back he squirts the potion vigorously all over her.
The moment when he makes Demetrius love Helena too is (literally) shocking
Also, Puck (now this big bearded giant in maintenance man uniform played by Ferdy Roberts) squirts the love potion over Lysander very suggestively. John Lightbody as Lysander, who a moment ago was willing to try and creep in with Hermia into her tent, becomes a sexual predator.
And by the end when Oberon lifts Titania from her love potion state, she is so guilt ridden by her Donkey fetish that she resigns herself to Oberon's will.
I was very engaged by this production on that level. I just cant quite say the same for the rest of the production.
Its trying to be metaphysical. This is not just a play-within-a-play. It is the drama between the actors-within-the Mechanicals and their play storyline-within-A Midsummer Night's Dream. Sure they bring the pacing to halt twice at the start to establish that but its there
They just don't follow it through.
Initially you wonder whether Andrew Buckley is Bottom in real life, as he takes over the production at times making small additions. He doesn't have asses ears here. What happens is Puck touches his head, the mechanicals take one look at him and rush off, or in other words take a few steps to the musical instruments they play at the back. And they then make sounds like the Monty Python coconut clops as Bottom walks. So when Bottom says "I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me", I thought it was a nice inside joke.
By the half way point though this audience member playing Bottom acts like a professional actor who has miraculously learnt his lines within a short period of time
Other than that this feels like two productions in one. The mechanical scenes, along with the offbeat and slapstick moments is Shakespeare meets The Play That Goes Wrong. The rest of the time this is a subversive Midsummer Nights Dream.
By the end Pyramus and Thisbe is rushed along and is not the humorous play-within-a-play it usually is. Then again after the foodfight it did have tough competition.
I suppose you could say that this production was trying to present itself as amateurish and hap-hazard as the mechanicals play. But in the end it is an non traditional, professional Filter production of Midsummer Night's Dream, that's trying to be metaphysical, slapstick and subversive at the same time.
For about 2/3rds of the play I enjoyed it
