The Stage

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Published Friday 5 August 2011 at 12:45 by Pat Ashworth

Nancy Meckler’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is pure delight, immensely physical, deeply magical and exploiting all the possibilities of the new space.

Pippa Nixon (Titania) and Marc Wootton (Bottom) in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon. Photo: Tristram Kenton

Theseus rules in an anonymous warehouse setting where the mechanicals are fixing something in the bowels of the building, Egeus wrenches his stubborn Hermia down the clattering metal staircase and a resentful Hippolyta, trophy of war, shuns her bridegroom-to-be.

The transformation she undergoes is at the heart of the interpretation, culminating in a rapturous dance with all the intensity of a pas de deux. Jo Stone-Fewings and Pippa Nixon are beautifully paired as Theseus/Oberon and Hippolyta/Titania. The woods bristle with energy and mischief, a chaos of slithering spirits, high-octane fairies and pillow fighting beneath bizarrely suspended wooden chairs.

The lovers are a flesh and blood quartet, and the night almost belongs to Lucy Briggs-Owen’s sublime Helena, a leggy Mary Quant fashion statement reduced to a grubby and almost incoherent waif. Her limbs and joints are as expressive as her face. Arsher Ali is an unhurried and ironic Puck and Marc Wootton’s bombastic Bottom brings the house down.

The mechanicals’ play is worthy of a review in itself. Just when you think it can’t get any more uproarious, it moves up another gear and plumbs another mine of comedy. Worlds collide throughout the play, the present breaks through the past and reality through the dream. So the rock Bergomask is an entirely fitting conclusion but it isn’t the last word. The sanctity of the final moments is Meckler at her very best.