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A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Published Friday 12 August 2005 at 17:10 by Barbara Lewis

Of Shakespeare’s plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the most obviously comic and among the best suited to a summer picnic production in the park.

Lord Strange’s Men, which takes its name from the company believed to have been the first to employ William Shakespeare, draws out the delightful comedy, though not the deepest nuances of a play that can imply far more than the joy and emotional maturity of a hard-won happy ending.

But if Evan Rees’ straightforward, well-paced direction does not deliver the most resonant production, it entertained even a child in the audience who, before the action began, had reduced the plot to “something about donkeys”.

The ‘donkey’ steals the show. Bottom, as played by Ralf Collie, brings to life the character’s endearing vanity and absurd self-belief and conveys his great redeeming feature that he can throw himself into any part, even that of an ass.

Ellie Fitzhenry as Helena and Claire Brine as Hermia bring painful, romantic confusion to an uproarious crescendo, while their embarrassed beaux Lysander (Chris Rogers) and Demetrius (Giles Alderson) gaze on.

These mere mortals are out-ranked by the relative gravity of Martin Ritchie as Theseus/Oberon and Katerina Judati as Hippolyta/Titania, whose seniority is established by her grey hair, but does not detract from her sensuality.

Straddling the two worlds and laughing at both is Gordon Ridout’s schoolboyish Puck, who, like the children in the audience, is blissfully immune to the emotional awakening of the other characters in the Dream.

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