A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Published Friday 16 May 2008 at 13:30 by Pat Ashworth

Gregory Doran’s revival of the RSC’s 2005 production is simply glorious. Technically, it flaunts to perfection what the Courtyard can do, with action mirrored in the magnificent semicircle of concave mirrors that completes the round and reflects a pendulous and ever-changing moon.

This most dreamlike of Dreams verges wickedly on nightmare. The Goth-like Fairies are a band of scavengers crowding the wood. They plunder the lovers’ luggage, display the muddy results on a forest of coathangers and dismember Peter Quince’s bicycle even as he is pushing it. Their murmuring mockery is a running commentary and their mass energy sweeps all into chaos.

The dolls they carry have a nightmarish quality. But the lifelike puppet that is the little changeling boy is bewitching. He is borne along like a Dalai Lama or watches with the wisdom of an infant Christ. It all throws into relief the shabby workplaces of the modern-day mechanicals, a lovable bunch whose apologetic play is Chaucerian in its bawdiness.

The lovers mature through hugely physical scenes that become pitched battles. The faltering, apologetic Helena (Natalie Walter) changes most, growing into beauty and confidence. Mark Hadfield’s solid, enigmatic Puck has a faun-like appearance, his ambitious exits followed by sounds of shattering glass. Joe Dixon makes a Brummie giant of Bottom, and Peter de Jersey and Andrea Harris provoke as Oberon and Titania.

Titania flies in spinning ecstasy against a rising sun and setting moon. Taken at whatever level you choose, this has universal appeal and a huge helping of enchantment.