A Midsummer Night's Dream

by William Shakespeare

seen at Shakespeare's Globe on 1 August 2019

Sean Holmes directs Peter Bourke as Thesues and Oberon, Victoria Elliott as Hippolita and Titania, and Jocelyn Jee Esien as Bottom, with Ciarán O'Brien as Demetrius, Amanda Wilkin as Helena, Faith Omole as Hermia, Ekow Quartey as Lysander, Billy Seymour as Flute and Mustardseed, Jacoba Williams as Snout and Moth, Rachel Hannah Clark as Snug and Peaseblossom, and Nadine Higgins as Quince, Egeus and Cobweb, in an exuberant production designed by Jean Chan including explosions of riotous colour in the fairy sequences.

The production plays to the strengths of the Globe - broad brushed comedy with plenty of engagement with the groundlings and some extraordinary multilingual improvised banter. Needless to say the Swahili passed me by, but Bottom's riff of common French phrases was extremely funny, and perhaps a wise replacement for the now rather laboured interrogations in the original script between him and Titania's attendants. The four lovers were high spirited and rushed headlong into their plans and disorganised passions - the flower juice wonderfully represented by gold glitter struck onto the boys' cheeks - and their 'Athenian garb' was a bizarre black-and-white affair of Pierrot-like ruffs in contrast to the rainbow colours of the fairy world. At the other extreme, a magisterial Oberon was encased in a golden costume of amazing splendour, while Titania was rather more ditsy in metallic tinsel. As is often the case now, their human counterparts Theseus and Hippolita were profoundly out of sympathy with one another, with little sign of reconciliation at the end - cleverly, Hippolita was given English text to read from prompt cards in her opening speech, underlying the fact that Theseus had just taken her by conquest in a foreign land.

The energy was remarkable, and the packed house very responsive to all the fun. Readers familiar with the play may have noticed that two characters were not referred to in the opening paragraph. The part of Starveling is selected in each performance from among the groundlings; today 'Hedley Starveling' was co-opted, quickly coached as required and looking suitably bemused to be so unexpectedly involved in presenting a play.

In contrast, the far more significant part of Puck was taken at various times by most members of the cast, by the brilliant expedient of donning a tee-shirt emblazoned with 'PUCK' across the chest. Often more than one Puck was on stage fighting for attention and the right to deliver the lines. There were two particular high points arising from this device. The first was the scene where Puck deceives Lysander and Demetrius in turn as they try to find one another to fight - of course Ciarán O'Brien and Ekow Quartey took the part as required. The second was the epilogue, spoken variously by all the cast in turn, each new 'Puck' blowdarting the previous speaker to sleep, so that finally everyone was collapsed on the stage.

All great good fun, even if the innate beauty of some of the lines was at times somewhat swamped by the manic energy required to bring the whole thing off.