‘Midsummer Night’s Dream : Nap time at the Cutler Majestic
Photo Credit Simone Annand. David Ricardo-Pearce as Oberon.
Reviewed by Jane Baldwin
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, now playing at Boston’s Cutler Majestic is the second show produced by the Bristol Old Vic Theatre Company in collaboration with the South African Handspring Puppet Company. The first, The War Horse, adapted from a children’s novel was a renowned prizewinner dominated by its large and beautifully choreographed puppets.
Shakespeare’s play is directed and choreographed quite differently, conceivably because of the stylistic incongruities. The romantic comedy takes place in three different realms: the world of the rich and powerful, fairyland and its magic, and the laboring class. Like most of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies, it is convoluted, revolving around three seemingly separate but related plots. To further complicate matters, many of the roles are double cast so as to accentuate similarities rather than variants. Theseus, the Duke of Athens and Oberon, the king of the fairies are both played by David Ricardo-Pearce while Saskia Portway enacts the Duke’s wife-to-be Hippolyta and Titania, the Queen of the fairies.
While the idea is clever, the production is likely to confuse audiences unfamiliar with the play. Artifice appears to be the driving force. Fifteen minutes before the play’s actual beginning, several Mechanicals appear in the house wandering about conversing quietly with audience members. Throbbing and percussive music is heard in the background. Onstage is an androgynous short haired blonde character wearing a royal blue cutaway jacket, trousers, and a brown apron that gives an impression of a skirt. Standing at a trestle table, her back to the audience, she appears to be creating a puppet of some sort. When she turns to carry and hang a large golden mask to the other side of the stage, we realize she is the Amazon Hippolyta. But is the mask Hippolyta or Titania? Or is it there to emphasize the psychological affinity between the two?
Vicki Mortimer’s abstract set with its shabby dark gold curtain stage right captures the play’s metatheatricality. It is in part an undefined workshop with various tools and a large drawing hanging on an easel. The forest where Lysander (Alex Felton) and Hermia (Akiya Genry) flee in order to marry is represented by the cast dressed in contemporary sweaters and jeans carrying staves in front of their faces and bodies. Counterbalancing this strangely mundane forest is Philip Gladwell’s ever-changing colorful fairy lighting.
During the preshow, the Mechanicals assert that the play is set in ancient Athens. However, anachronisms abound. Puck, the mischievous sprite of the fairy world, is a dog-like puppet composed of a basket, saw, and an oil can, manipulated by three different actors, all of whom speak his lines when appropriate. The mechanical Bottom, the object of a spellbound Titania, drives about upside down on a cycle, his donkey ears placed on his feet, his bare buttocks waving in the air, tempting the Fairy Queen. While much of this is funny, it lacks consistency.
The Mechanicals have a more prominent part than usual, since at times most of the characters, including Hippolyta, are presented as workers, an interpretation I found confusing. While many of the images are interesting, time, place, and overall intention are lost. There is so much going on with hardly a pause for a transition that it is difficult to follow the language.
For the most part, the enormous puppets of The War Horse have been replaced by miniaturized versions of characters who carry them about like dolls. Oberon stands out as he holds a large mask in his left hand and manipulates an enormous right hand, one of the few moments of fairy magic.
ArtsEmerson Presents A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Bristol to Vic production in association with Handspring puppet company
Saikat Ahamed Snug/Puck
Colin Michael Carmichael Quince/Please Blossom
Naoimi Cranston Helena
Alex Felton Lysander
Fionn Gill Snout/Puck/Moth
Akiya Henry Hermia
Christopher Keegan Flute, Philostrate/Cobweb
Kyle Lima Demetrius
Saskia Portway Hippolyta/Titania
David Ricardo-Pearce Theseus/Oberon
Lucy Tuck Starveling, Puck, Mustardseed
Miltos Yerolemou Bottom/Egeus
Tom Morris Director
Handspring Puppet Company
Vicki Mortimer Designer
Philip Gladwell Lighting Designer
Dave Price Composer
Christopher Shutt Sound Designer
Playing at the Cutler Majestic, Boston, MA from March 12-155