A Midsummers Night's Dream

The forests and lovers of Shakespeare's imagined magical Greece, resplendent with fairies and sprites, takeover the stage at Lakeside this week in A Midsummer Night's Dream, produced as a partnership between Nottingham New Theatre and Nottingham University. This is not their first rodeo, with successful productions of Lysistrata and Dr Faustus in the previous two years, but their first go at the bard together. 

Now, to the play, and a smattering of GCSE Shakie revision. The setting: ancient Athens.  Hermia loves Lysander, who reciprocates, but she is also the object of affection for Demetrius, much to the anger of Helena – in love with Demetrius herself. Lysander and Hermia run off to a nearby wood, where fairy interference and a love potion lead to both Lysander and Demetrius falling in love with Helena, to Hermia's displeasure. Luckily fairy magic rights the wrongs (save for leaving of Demetrius still drugged and in love with Helena - awkward) and they watch a play after the fairy queen gets off with a donkey. Happily ever after. 

Martin Berry's spirited production has all of these core elements and there's a great deal of fun but it removes the crucial device of Theseus and Hippolyta in acts 1 and 5. This dramaturgical sandwiching of the dream "filling" in the fairies' wood is one of the elements that makes the play so wonderful - the real world of the duke and his ruling, where Hermia must live as a chaste nun if she denies his favoured suitor - and the freedom of night realm that the three central acts inhabit. Here we are too soon in this wood and lose the contrast with the stuffiness of Athens, which the lovers must escape. 

This is further muddied by Theseus and Hippolyta's lines being taken by Oberon and Titania; Oberon hands down the judgment then countermands it with the instruction to Puck to intercede. The knowing meta-theatricality of Dream allows for the doubling up but there should really be a distinction, with the freed night-time version contrasting with the more dour lord of the day. The device also removes one of the joys of the play as the audience - where the fairies, unseen by mortals but seen by the viewer, manipulate the lovers, with Bottom being the only mortal to see a fairy in the original text that he puts down to a  dream "past the wit of man". The return of Puck to deliver an epilogue apologising for theatrical liberties taken could be also a sorry for cutting the duke and his betrothed.

There is much to enjoy in the production. Laura Jayne Bateman's mad-cap Puck is fun to watch, although prone to throwing lines up stage, but her performance is drowned out in places by the parlour music piano which is over-used and over-present throughout the play - almost like a constant Erik Satie Gymnopedie underscoring. The standout performance is that of Libby Boyd as Helena, who has the best command of the pace of her lines and the intention behind them. She also has some great physical set-pieces with the foppish Demetrius, played well by Daniel O'Connor. The set is beautifully designed by Dorrie Scott with pillared trees and flown branches interwoven with (fittingly) fairy lights. There is also a lovely moment when a silken blanket is dropped from the flies to cover the sleeping Titania.  

The production also hosts the crudest rude mechanicals I've ever seen perform Pyramus and Thisbe, from collapsing sets to tea-bagging the leading man. The decision to have Oberon and Titania played by women along with Puck is a good move and this gender-blind casting give us a fresh take here. So to does the end of revels jig being performed energetically to Uptown Funk. 

This Dream has a lot to like, but it's hindered by the clumsy decisions around the removing of the structure provided by Theseus and Hippolyta. In an abridged version some things have to go but this was an abridge too far and affected the rest of piece. In performance the company give some fine performances and I did laugh a great deal, especially at the mechanicals' mishaps, but there was always something nagging at me with the lack of Athens sandwich. Pedantic, I know, but with the high standards set by this creative team before - Martin Berry is a very good director and does well here - I expected the script to work thoroughly. No, a text isn't sacrosanct, especially not Shakespeare, but this edit wasn't for me. It's an entertaining evening but perhaps one for the picky early modernist to approach with caution.