A Midsummer Nights Dream

The director writes....

"A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of the funniest plays ever written. GST’s modern dress production aims to show just how funny a play the Dream is, and to send audiences away laughing.

It’s also, of course, a play about magic, and GST has the enormous advantage of a small and magical open air stage. The Dream could have been written for production in Little Wood. GST plans to use the little tree-lined clearing it calls a theatre in a new way, moving actors and audience around the space, mingling music and magic, mingling actors and audience, making everyone in the space a part of a vast conspiracy against common sense."

Rehearsal Photos
Cast
Crew
Press
Show Synopsis
Director's Note
Review
Previous Productions

Rehearsal Photos

Some early rehearsal shots of Hermia, Helena, Lysander and Demetrius...

and of the fairies, Puck and Oberon...

Cast

Crew

The set was constructed by members of the Garden Suburb Theatre, and costumes were provided by the cast and their supporters. GST is grateful to

• the Royal National Theatre for a significant item of costume
• Mike Solomons , Fellow, National Association of Toastmasters, for a red coat
• Councillor & Mrs Andreas Tambourides , Mayor & Mayoress of Barnet,

Press

From the Ham & High, June 2005

From the Hendon Times, 15 July 2005

From The Guardian, 19 July 2005 Download as PDF | Link to The Guardian website

A midsummer night's headache

Dodging exam schedules, Francis Beckett rehearses students for his open-air play

Tuesday July 19, 2005
The Guardian

For weeks, I have thought of little but Hermia's A-levels. I have not turned my back on Lysander, toiling away for his AS-levels at Woodhouse Sixth Form College, but it is Hermia's A-levels that keep me awake at night.

My troubles began when I said I'd direct the open-air summer show for my local north London amateur dramatic group, Garden Suburb Theatre, in Hampstead Garden Suburb, and I wanted to do A Midsummer Night's Dream. GST is stuffed with talent, but quite a large proportion of it is - how shall I put it? - more mature than young lovers are supposed to be.

So I wrote to heads of drama at local schools and sixth form colleges, asking them to send young actors along to the audition. And on the appointed evening I was confronted by more than 50 eager people, many of them under 20. Several girls had dressed to impress. Middle-aged hacks don't often get to feel like Hollywood moguls, even the sort of mogul who has to slum it in a north London scout hut.

Hannah Johnston, head of drama at Woodhouse, came up trumps by sending Mathew Ali. I knew the moment he opened his mouth that he should play Lysander. He has never read or seen A Midsummer Night's Dream before, so he approaches Shakespeare's lines with a natural lack of reverence. There's no danger of him starting to declaim them sonorously. He isn't sure he'll ever be a Shakespeare fan. Other influences matter more. At Woodhouse,

Johnston gave him the plum part of Father Jack in Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa, and a part in Kwame Kwei-Armah's Fix Up, set in an African-Caribbean neighbourhood in north London.

Mathew - part Irish, part Indian, part Kenyan - lives with his mother and four brothers in Islington. He's 17 and studying for AS-levels in drama, maths, French and music. He hopes the experience of speaking Shakespeare and acting in the open air will stand him in good stead when he applies to drama school this year.

For Hermia I chose Sarah Hajibagheri, from the local girls' grammar school. But Mathew's AS-levels finished on the Friday before the Monday on which Sarah's A-levels started. So if I wanted to rehearse them together, I had the briefest possible window. I worked the four lovers to death that weekend.

Our theatre is a tree-lined clearing in a small wood. It's perfect for the atmosphere of rural magic required for A Midsummer Night's Dream, except that the actors must make themselves heard above the low hum of lorries thundering along the A1 a few yards away and the occasional low-flying, Luton-bound airliner. They constantly risk being upstaged by wildlife. If the audience laughs and you've said nothing funny, you have a butterfly on your head or a hedgehog at your feet. And they have to cover themselves in insect repellent. Sarah turned out to be in the midges' Good Food Guide this year.

Getting teenagers to play the lovers should mean they would be happy with the fast, physical rough-and-tumble the play needs. They were; a bit too ready. As Lysander says "Vile thing, let loose, or I will shake thee from me like a serpent", Hermia must hold him in a grip of steel. But Mathew is a big, beefy chap, and Sarah - well, Sarah isn't. The first few times we tried it, she ended up flat on her back. It took him a while to grasp the trick of trying to escape, but not succeeding.

Then Hermia throws her Lysander down, sits on his back, and beats his head on the ground. This time it was Sarah who had to be restrained, Mathew finally suggesting that perhaps he should bang his own head on the ground while Sarah rested her hand on his head. Sarah again got carried away when instructed to smack Demetrius (19-year-old Christian Radnedge). She apologised magnificently, but Christian's amour propre took a dent.

It's going to get worse. I've decided the scene needs a further act of violence. It is no good for Helena to weep weakly for protection from Hermia - "I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen, let her not hurt me" - unless she's actually getting hurt. Hermia needs to bang Helena's head on the ground, too. Whether I can persuade Helena (Camilla Collins, also 17) that this is a good idea, I am not sure. To find out, you will have to come and see.

· The show runs until Saturday July 23. Box office: 020-7723 6609

Show Synopsis

Greek hero Theseus, ruler of Athens, is about to marry his conquest Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. He calls for a festival of music, dancing and drama.

He is asked to rule on a family row between Egeus and his daugher Hermia. Egeus has arranged her marriage to Demetrius, and she violently objects because she loves another young man, Lysander. Hermia's  friend Helena loves Demetrius but he is no longer interested in her. Lysander proposes that he and Hermia should elope through the forest to seek shelter with an aunt of his. Helena tells Demetrius this in the hope of regaining his favour, but he runs off after Hermia, and she follows.

A group of ordinary Athenian citizens  form a troupe to put on a play for the Royal couple and suggest a place in the outlying forest for a rehearsal.

In the forest - the fairy kingdom - Oberon and Titania,  king and queen of the fairies, are having a row about their infidelities. She has taken his favourite page boy into her own retinue, and he is peeved. He enlists the magical sprite Puck,  to help Helena to gain Demetrius' love by putting an ointment in the sleeping Demetrius' eyes to make him love what he first sees when he awakes.

To punish his queen, Oberon puts the same ointment into her eyes as she sleeps. The mischievous Puck translates one of the actors, Nick Bottom, into an ass while the group is rehearsing in the forest, scaring the players half to death. 

Oberon's plans do not quite work out in the way he intended, as Puck enchants the wrong man. Oberon’s spell on Titania results in her falling for Bottom, who quite happily lolls about in the company of the amorous queen and her fairies, until eventually Oberon removes the spell and she returns his affections once more.

Things get worse after Oberon demands that Puck put everything  right. As a result of the magic spells, Demetrius switches his affections back to Helena, Lysander falls for Helena too, and Hermia and Helena come to blows. Oberon is furious with Puck. Puck finally sorts it out and sends them all to sleep. Theseus and his hunting party come across them sleeping as two couples - Lysander back with Hermia as she always wished, and Demetrius happy again with Helena. Theseus now overrules Egeus over Hermia’s marriage to Lysander, and agrees that the lovers should be married on the same occasion as he and Hippolyta - who is herself a less than totally compliant bride.

Bottom, back to normal returns to the troupe and they get ready to perform the play. After the couples return from the temple and their dinner, Theseus demands his entertainment, and selects this play despite advice that it is a poor production.

Director's Note

Shakespeare the vulgarian

There’s no point in being reverent about A Midsummer Night’s Dream . It’s fun, it’s farce and it’s fantastical. There’s a lot of sex in it. If it weren’t set in a forest, you’d hear as many bedroom doors slam as if you were watching Feydeau. It’s full of double-entendres, with endless potential for obscene visual jokes.

So this production is unashamedly vulgar – though not quite as vulgar as I’d have chosen. There are a few concessions to family audiences.

And it isn’t a play for a particular time in history. It’s not like, say, Richard III , which, unless you want to do something really radical, ought logically to be set at the time that the real Richard III lived. It makes no more sense to set the Dream in 1605 than it makes to set it in 2005. I’ve chosen 2005.

So if you want your Shakespeare reverently intoned, by actors in doublets and hose who would have to spend several hours unbuttoning themselves before a night of passion could be a realistic option, you’re in the wrong place.

But if you want the Dream as I think he intended it – funny, rude, noisy, and unsubtle – welcome, and have fun.

Francis Beckett July 2005

Review

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM by William Shakespeare

Produced by Francis Beckett in Little Oak Wood, July 2005

Francis had promised us sex, violence and humour, and these were well delivered by a very competent and enthusiastic cast.

I must admit to being rather a traditionalist, and was therefore somewhat apprehensive about seeing one of my favourite Shakespeare plays in a modern setting. However, this was balanced against my belief that Shakespeare should be available to and can be enjoyed by all ages, and this production brought the Bard’s characters firmly into line with today’s youth and the timeless problems of relationships of all kinds.

Theseus, played by Stephen Lanigan-O’Keeffe , was a suitably regal figure, although seemed a little bemused by his prospective bride, Hippolyta, played by Rosie Nicchitta as an urban guerrilla figure who rather seemed to suggest that it was she who had made a conquest, and would be firmly ruling the family, whatever Theseus thought was happening!

Egeus was well portrayed by Toby Moore as the recognisable figure of the father who “thought he knew best” about where his daughter’s future should lie, and in some desperation was asking for back-up for his views from the more authoritative figure of King.

The four young people who played the Lovers were excellent, and we are lucky to have such brilliant talent in GST. Hermia, played by Sarah Hajibagheri, was feisty and angry about her situation. Lysander, played by Matthew Ali, was an extremely likeable character who made Hermia’s longing for him feel very believable. Demetrius, played by Christian Radnedge, appeared far more arrogant, and extremely determined in the beginning to get his own way in all things, while the gentle and modest Helena, convincingly played by Camilla Collins, seemed to have an impossible task to gain his affection, and hopefully find a more sympathetic and kind side to him.

All these young people acted with passion and energy, and delivered their lines with clarity and obvious understanding of the depth of meaning of the text. It was a joy to hear Shakespeare performed in a way that could be enjoyed by the very wide variety of people in the audience at each performance.

The “rude mechanicals” worked very well in modern garb. Peter Quince (John Colmans) had very believable difficulty in keeping his cast for the play on task, in view of the variety of the characters he had available for the event. Nick Bottom (Robert Verrill) in particular was the type of performer who has a gift for giving his all to a part, but is a nightmare to direct. Robert was extremely funny in all his incarnations – the social-climbing weaver, the Ass loved by Titania and, as Pyramus, the actor who could not be stopped!

Flute (Natalie Adzic) was a very good foil to Pyramus when being his Thisbe, and is another comic find with an innate sense of timing. Nothing lost here by Flute not being played by a man.

Tom Snout, Noel Radnedge, was a great tinker, but even more convincing as “Wall” – again a great sense of comedy combined with a lovely dumbed down delivery of his speeches.

Snug, Linda Lewis, looked every inch the competent joiner, and was a splendidly non-aggressive lion in the play. Robin Starveling, the tailor, played by Andrew Craze, was particularly hilarious with his deadpan portrayal of Moonshine – and I loved his hand-puppet dog.

The Fairies were a good contrast to the “earthlings” – the use of more traditional fairy costumes made the division between them and the rest of the cast more striking. Titania, in the extremely capable hands of Mary Musker, was beguiling, sensuous and sexy, and Oberon, Mark Overall, looked convincingly commanding and handsome, and a very believable Fairy King. The fairies, Peaseblossom played by Raquel Larnyon, Cobweb, played by Andrea Peirides, Mustardseed played by Jessica Azzopardi and Moth played by Joanna Vaizey were all excellent – their lines were clearly spoken and delivered with understanding, and they looked delightful emerging from among the trees at various points in costumes that were traditional but had a modern twist.

Puck was portrayed by Emma Solomons, and I think this is one of the best Pucks I have ever seen, She was agile and mischievous, but looked suitably contrite when she had made a mistake and aroused the wrath of Oberon, for whom this magical spirit would obviously have done anything he asked. As with all the cast of this production, the lines were delivered with real feeling and depth.

Philostrate, Master of Revels, was played by Tony Newton as a Master of Ceremonies and ably served to bring matters together. (Tony was also Assistant Director and Front of House Manager, so by no means idle!).

As always, the Little Wood served as a great backdrop for our summer production, and for this one in particular with the fairies using the arena and the trees. I found that the acoustics seemed better when the cast delivered from the grass area than when they were on the steps, but that may have been the placement of cast and audience at the particular time, or even the cast getting into their stride at the beginning. There were certainly no problems of hearing during the “play” performed by Quince’s cast. The moving of the audience twice during the performance caused surprisingly little disruption and was a useful innovation to suggest changing scenery.

As mentioned previously, the contrast of costumes for the Fairy world (I would have preferred Puck more “fairylike”) and the Earthlings worked very well, although I did have some reservations about the mixing of rather Asian-looking garb for Theseus with the urban guerrilla “uniform” of Hippolyta, and also the ultra modern schoolgirlish clothes of Hermia and Helena in the first scene.

But these are very small and personal comments on what was an innovative, slick and lively production. Everyone concerned, whether a seasoned GST member or new to our company, gave a creditable performance . I feel sure that anyone who saw it will want to see more Shakespeare as a result, and will realise that his plays do not become irrelevant with the passing years. Thanks Francis for wonderful entertainment and bringing “The Dream” to life!

Joyce Piper

Previous Productions

When we performed A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1950, David McCallum played Oberon. Here he is, with Roy Wilkinson as Puck.

A message from around the world :

From: David McCallum, star of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. who played Oberon, King of the Fairies, in this arena, as a youthful member of our society, in 1950:

“So long ago! And I have so many wonderful memories of every production in which I was involved. I wish you every success.

As I shall be at work on the 3rd season of NCIS half way around the world, and as I do not have Puck's abilities, I won't be able to come and see you. 

All the very best, David McCallum”