Running until 12 October 2013 at Shakespeare’s Globe, Bankside
Time and time again The Globe proves it offers the best value theatre tickets in London. For just £5 you can lean up against the stage and watch one of Shakespeare’s classics performed live; the inclement and changeable weather is all part of the experience. One of the greatest joys of going to the Globe is seeing the traditions kept up again and again – there is a short musical prelude to each performance with musicians in period garb playing Renaissance instruments, the actors are all costumed in traditional dress, and of course the cheeky audience interaction – they are a joy each and every time.
This performance of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, directed by Dominic Dromgoole (current Artistic Director of the Globe), exceeds all expectations of traditional comedy. It is difficult not to buckle over with laughter during some of the scenes – specifically those with the labourers Bottom, Peter Quince, Tom Stout, Snug, Francis Flute and Robin Starveling. Bottom is played by Pearce Quigley, who starred as Grumio in the Globe production of The Taming of the Shrew last year – and gave me pains from laughing when each time Petruchio mentioned the death of his father, Grumio kicked a metal bucket he kept nearby. Time Out hit the nail on the head with his rendition of Bottom:
The wonderfully deadpan Pearce Quigley very nearly stole the show in last summer’s ‘Taming of the Shrew’; here he walks off with it as an ultra-laconic Bottom, investing the normally boorish chief mechanical with a sort of hangdog glumness that’s amusingly Eeyore-ish. Which is appropriate, since he does get turned into a donkey as part of the convoluted romantic machinations of fairy king Oberon (John Light) and queen Titania (Michelle Terry).
Maybe the best illustration of the deadpan humour this refers to is the following picture of the labourers’ discussing how the ‘chink of a wall’ should be signified on stage in their play, ‘Pyramus & Thisbe’ -
The Telegraph‘s review, by Charles Spencer, published today 31 May, also describes the hilarious rendition of the play-within-a-play at the end of the production:
The climactic staging of Pyramus and Thisby is one of the funniest I have seen, with the actors crammed onto a tiny stage, and sinking their feet through unreliable floorboards that require urgent noisy repairs while the performance is in progress. Yet Fergal McElherron’s Quince glows with pride and happiness as the shambolic show progresses, while Christopher Logan’s shy Francis Flute ecstatically discovers his feminine side as Thisby.
A word of appreciation has to go to the designer for this production, Jonathan Fensom. The detail in costume changes – especially for the four lovers – is on pointe, and the operational pyrotechnics of the tiny stage for the play-within-a-play, an absolute delight to witness.
However, the highlights of the production for me were the scenes between Oberon (John Light) and Puck (Matthew Tennyson).
Tennyson’s rendition of Puck is ethereal - and perfect for keeping the audience aware that they’re watching a fairy on stage. His lithe flights around the stage and up the marble columns – as well as his unearthly interpretations of Puck’s monologues – keep you transfixed each time he’s in view. John Light’s Oberon, in contrast, is a paragon of physicality – at one point during the play entirely suspending himself in a ball in the air, with his only support being his two palms on the stage floor. The interactions between Tennyson’s Puck and Light’s Oberon on stage run the gamut between master and servant, brothers, lovers and a fairy king with his jester – in particular scenes ii & iii of Act 3, where Oberon and Puck are meddling in the love crossovers between Lysander, Demetrius, Helena and Hermia. This complex relationship reinvigorates an otherwise unremarkable aspect of the play and allows for a more in-depth analysis of the fairies’ motives and mischiefs.
‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ is playing in The Globe until 12 October and there are £5 tickets up for grabs for every performance. It would be fiscally irresponsible to miss it.
