Review: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, Unicorn Theatre

Photo credit: Helen Murray

Co-production is a crucial mechanism for theatre today, enabling work to be created and then shared between venues. The thought of the Unicorn Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company working together was an exciting one, and a full house of children and adults greeted the resulting production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Interest was created by the changing lights on stage before the show began, with several children attempting to guess the purpose of the portholes around the set. In the event, they have several functions on Lily Arnold’s adaptable setting, an assemblage of chipboard, rope and tyres, brought to life with colour and light. The set cleverly suggests the playing areas at a Shakespearean theatre like the Globe.

Arnold is also responsible for the clever costumes, the confusion of the lovers being mirrored in the increasing patches of colour on their costumes. Dressing the mechanicals each in a single colour helps to make the narrative clear too. Fairies (played by recorded children’s voices) are heard rather than seen, and the production is perhaps lacking some of the usual elements of magic.

Where it does make its mark is in the use of creative captioning (Will Monks), always helpful and occasionally stunning in how it underpins or illuminates the action on stage. The small cast almost all double up, even in this 90-minute edited version of the text by Robin Belfield. It is played without an interval, as is the fashion of our times. It’s an intelligent and easy-to-follow adaptation, keeping most of the characters and giving equal weight to the lovers and the workers.

Co-directors Rachel Bagshaw and Robin Belfield make good use of the Weston Theatre auditorium, bringing much of the action into the audience, and also ensure that the doubling is convincing and the characters are carefully created. In particular, attention is paid to first entrances, with character names captioned and the workers holding the tools of their trade. It’s a confident, clear and enjoyable production, if not perhaps quite as innovative as might have been expected from these two partner companies.

There is much to enjoy from the cast, whether in the form of an engaging Puck from Joséphine-Fransilja Brookman or all four of the lovers, who also play the Mechanicals. Inevitably, the audience enjoyed most the very Welsh Bottom, played by Emmy Stonelake, quick to respond to the audience and funny too as Egeus, including a late appearance with errant moustache. The translated Bottom is less effective, and we get only a small pair of ears rather than a donkey head, and no braying. The production also includes the usual doubling of Theseus and Hippolyta with Oberon and Titania; all played extremely well but perhaps very similarly?

A Midsummer Night’s Dream runs at the Unicorn until 10 May, and can then be seen at The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon over the summer. It is aimed at those aged 7 and over and is likely to be an excellent experience for those with little knowledge of the play, as well as offering much to those who have been introduced to it already.

**** Four stars

Reviewed by: Chris Abbott

For more info on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, please click here.