Shakespeare’s Dream runs short of magic
It’s Shakespeare with a twist
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a great mix of passion, poetry, magic and bawdy humour, but it’s the humour and the sense of magic that make it special. In this large-scale Abbey production, the humour works very well, but a lot of the magic is lost, sometimes by speeches that don’t hit the mark, sometimes by the setting and staging.
The lovers in the revamped story are not dashing young men, but a couple of ancients in a nursing home, fighting over the aged Hermia, leaving poor Helena loveless. It’s one of many ways director Gavin Quinn works against convention.
The setting works well in the opening section, adding good humorous touches to the original, but doesn’t last the pace.
The real heroes are the local yokels, also residents of the nursing home, who form the incompetent acting group (‘the rude mechanicals’) putting on a ‘merry and tragical’ play to celebrate a wedding. The group, led by Quince (David Pearse on top form), and Bottom (Andrew Bennett) includes old hands Des Nealon, Peadar Lamb and John Olohan.
They get every comic nuance out of the play-within-a-play. But I’d like to have seen Pearse and Bennett switching roles. It would make more sense of the two characters.
There are good performances in the lead roles by Declan Conlon doubling as Theseus and Oberon, and Fiona Bell (Hippolyta and Titiana). Gina Moxley does a stand-out job as the lovelorn Helena.
But some of the magic and the mystery in the forest scenes is lost by the nursing home setting. The stage ends up fussily cluttered with chairs, duvets and pillows, and ‘the mechanicals’ looked very cramped in their rehearsal scene. Not to mention dripfeed stands dragged on to administer magic potions to the sleeping lovers.
Puck, the mischievous fairy, well spoken by Daniel Reardon, wearing black and looking sullen, is allowed little of the light, magical spirit of that ‘merry wanderer of the night’.
The play leaves plenty of scope for innuendo, especially when Lysander (John Kavanagh) is snuggling up to Hermia, and Titania, the fairy queen (a splendidly vocal and slinky Fiona Bell) gets lustful with Bottom. But instead of subtlety, director Gavin Quinn, instead of subtlety, opts for Demetrius (Barry McGovern) attempting a crude rear humping job on Hermia during her catfight with Helena. It’s a classic case of individual good parts not making a totally satisfactory whole.
Drip-feed stands are dragged on to deliver magic potions