Though rain begins to fall with aptly theatrical timing, nothing can dampen the spirits of the audience members as they sit munching their picnics, eagerly awaiting Chester Perform’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to commence at Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre. It wouldn’t be a British Summer without a shower or two , but luckily the clouds quickly pass to make way for this intriguing interpretation of a timeless work.
In a
performance that reiterates the notion of reflection and contrast, we soon
learn that the actors playing mortal rulers Hippolyta and Theseus are also cast
as the flighty rulers of Faery, Titania and Oberon. Clever use of actor twins Danielle and Nichole
Bird means that Puck, the nimble trickster sprite, appears to zip around the
earth in the twinkle of an eye, speedily rushing off stage in one direction only
to zoom past again from the other seconds later. Though the two later come to
be on stage at the same time, admittedly shattering the ingenious illusion, the
production’s duality motif is further highlighted by the antics of the mischievous
pair. 
The most
striking embodiment of this counterpart imagery appears when the acting troupe
of simple tradesmen first depart, lifting up a giant metal ring from around the
circular stone podium in the midst of the theatre - a symbolic loosening of the girdle
of reality and reason - to float in ethereal mimicry of the earthbound mortal
world. Only now that this strange doorway in the air is manifest, and the deliciously
atmospheric full moon gleams amid the real storm clouds above, can the Fairies
enter; attired like a motley gypsy band, they bring no end of mayhem and mischief
in their wake, not to mention spark a veritable explosion of carnal yearning in
the mortals with which they choose to toy for a night’s sport. . . With the
juice of an intoxicating flower smeared about their eyes, we see rival suitors
Lysander and Demetrius snarling and writhing like hounds as they hump the earth
(as well as the leg of a very bewildered Helena) in a burst of pure animalistic
passion.
The result is a riotous fight scene with a rainbow
spectrum of powder paint bombs blooming in the air with Fairies devilishly
providing the unwitting humans with ammunition. Whilst hilarious, it has to be
said that the dismayed sense of sisterly betrayal Shakespeare penned in the quarrel
between Helena and Hermia is somewhat disappointingly drowned out in the uproar.
Nevertheless,
the combined efforts of director Alex Clifton and choreographer Imogen Knight
ensure that the Bard’s elegant and ornate Elizabethan words are colourfully expressed
in a manner that is enormously entertaining to all the family. Spectacle is very much the order of the day and
we are given it in abundance: lords and ladies chant in candlelit procession; Fairies
crow a rustic lullaby on folk instruments; the humble workemens' troupe performs its play-within-a-play
to the newly-weds (now seated, like the audience, with drink and picnic in hand)
along with a sprightly Morris dance, at both of which the audience continually
roar with laughter, clapping and stomping away to the music.
Actors and
audience alike delight in the frequent interaction with the gathered onlookers:
lordly Oberon smears the charmed flower’s aphrodisiacal juice upon the noses of
an elderly couple and cheekily wishes them a good night, whilst Bottom runs about
as an ass with a Fairy entourage to steal a swig of prosecco or a mouthful of
grapes from stunned picnickers, and lovelorn Helena chases her would-be
sweetheart through the seated crowd to take a perilous dive off the terrace
above.
Shakespeare’s
work continues to speak to us through the ages of the unifying and transcendental
power of love whilst convention is well and truly turned on its head, and this
production remains faithful to these themes whilst instilling it with a fresh and
original vibrancy.
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