It begins, quite literally, with a bang and there is the fairy Puck in grease-paint, a tutu, and tuxedo watching us watching him silently eat a banana. A minute later: an explosion of noise and activity as a deranged Theseus, Duke of Athens is stomping up and down the beautifully laid table, kicking away the crockery.
Our collective attention at Oxford Playhouse has now been well and truly grabbed as we hastily abandoned our expectations. This is an exciting, strange, mischievous and dark telling of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Headlong Theatre. It is also excellent.
This production gets so many of the basics right: the cast speak loudly and clearly. They are eager for each other’s attention but also for ours. They are dressed in cool, non-time-specific clothes and stand out on a brightly lit, uncluttered white stage – offset by a shiny black piano that is more C.S. Lewis than the Bard.
Yes, in this Dream it’s pretty wintery. When the two couples – Hermia and Lysander; Helena and Demetrius – head for the enchanted forest in order to escape the demands and constraints of the Athenian court, snow really does begin to fall in this intriguing adaptation.
As there is no central role in this play, there are many contenders for this evening’s ‘Steal The Show’ award: the malevolent, clown-like Puck (Sergo Vares), the dryly funny and rotund Northerner, Bottom (Danny Kirrane), the exasperated Helena (Tara Tijani) and the surly, arrogant Demetrius (Lou Jackson) are the main contenders.
Holly Race Roughan brings some brilliant directorial ideas to the production: the way that Lysander and Demetrius are driven disturbingly insane by the love-spells cast upon them, suggesting the sometimes unbearable pain of love; the intriguing incorporation of a Billie Eilish and a Black Sabbath song into the proceedings – I couldn’t tell you why but it works.
And particularly, the ending: a bloody and shocking twist to the original conclusion of the play. If you had always wondered why, in Puck’s final monologue, he feels we might have been ‘offended’, then Headlong’s production might just have provided you with the answer. A Midsummer Night’s Nightmare? Not quite, but getting there.
Dark and different but a must-see nonetheless.
EDWARD BLISS
A Midsummer Night’s Dream runs until Saturday (March 28) at Oxford Playhouse https://www.oxfordplayhouse.com/events/a-midsummer-nights-dream
