CAMBRIDGE SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL - 'THE DREAM' TRINITY COLLEGE GARDENS
The Dream can seldom be dreamt so magically as in Trinity Fellows gorgeous garden. Sparse props needed – the lengthening shadows of this exquisitely tended deep green woodland create a backdrop few productions could begin to match. Spacious green sward surrounded by mysteriously crowded trees, slope away from the audience, so characters appear – and vanish – in a trice. And all this as the action begins and we listen in on a nasty row between daughter Hermia and her father as to whom she will marry. It is a dark start to the action as he threatens to kill her if she does not comply. Heard before King Theseus, a stern Jonathon Freeman, and partner a cool detached Anna Alvar ,Hermia resolves to defy her dad and run away with Lysander her beloved. Both lovers ,superbly conveyed by an undaunted Roisin Hamilon and resolute Tom Patrick Coley carry much of the energy in the play. Between them they engage us with their illicit affair – soon to suffer from the fairy treatment- and disintegrate into confusion.
We then switch to the fairy glade ( same space ) and Oberon’s clash with Titania. So beguiled is this critic with the magical performances, (and late to the cast list) I have just realized the real-life royalty are also the fairy figures. The King and Queen of Fairyland become their mortal real-life counterparts. But how the ethereal elegant Titania -Anna Avara can metamorphose into the solemn static Hippolyta and gloomy Theseus into the enchantment of a brusque Scottish Oberon a brilliant invention by an impressive actor, is a mysterious trick of theatre.
The Mechanicals’ ham -fisted performance is a well known trope of this play. However I found the rehearsal rather tedious despite the fabulous larger-than-life Bottom,taken in hand and revived by a truly funny Charles McGuire, and his fellow horny handed sons of toil. His encounters with Titania ( see above) provided real mirth five hundred years after the original,
Yet it took the Battle of the Sexes, savage conflict between Hermia and an inspirational Rosalind Jackson Roe as Helena to steal the show. Bewitched by fairy potions, the women swap their affections and turn love to hate in a moment.( Freud was not wrong it seems here) What emerges is truly a gloves-off fury and umasked menace between them.The choreography of the fights is brilliant. The pantomime of it all, attended by a crushed battered and bruised Lysander on the one hand and bullish Joel Cass Nelson as a riled and ready for action Demetrius really works.. Everyone is in a rage and the scenes are sensational. For the first time in this play, I thought I glimpsed Shakespeare’s subversive desire to expose the vagaries of affections between men and women- and the random way we humans fall in love. It could be a parody for modern times .
Puck, Megan Mabilleau was prodigious. She almost shot across the darkening set . Her delivery was quirky but fun,- what a feat the role is – to hold a shattered cast of characters together.
As we went our way through the clipped and cultured sylvan path, the memory remained magical. A couple of gripes. Must thesps wear modesty shorts under some beautiful costumes ( Helena? , Demetrius?) also I think a tough prune of the script , yes I know it’s the Bard himself, to avoid repetition would improve the delightful performance further. And I could do without the cruder elements, (exploded balloon bosoms jokes – ask Mr.Albinesi !)
Yet is was a truly lovely evening lost in another magical world.
