Posted by quinn
on August 31, 2009, 1:01 pm, in reply to "Dream Reviews"
71.242.96.168
Seasonal affect in order
Robert Cushman, National Post
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One of the joys of Stratford's latest Midsummer Night's Dream is seeing Geraint Wyn Davies play a Shakespearean role in which he remains alive into the second act. In the past two years he's given superb performances of Polonius, Duncan and Julius Caesar, all of whom get brutally dispatched before the intermission. In Dream he is, enchantingly, Bottom the weaver who, even after committing suicide as Pyramus in the play-within-the-play, rises triumphantly from the ground to reassure the spectators.
Before that, of course, he's serenely weathered temporary transmogrification into an ass. Sweet serenity is the note of Wyn Davies' performance, open-faced, open-hearted and played, in accordance with the actor's name and ancestry, with a magically melodious Welsh lilt; he really can roar you as gently as any sucking dove. The mechanicals' play is clearly the opportunity he's been awaiting for all his life; he delivers tremendous impromptu auditions for Pyramus and Thisbe and the Lion, and when denied the opportunity to play all three goes into a sulk so tremendous yet so devoid of malice that it's no wonder his friends all rally round to woo him back. The great clown scenes in this production aren't the usual set pieces of play and rehearsal, but this first meeting and the reunion when Bottom returns from the forest, in which the joy and wonder amount to an epiphany. There's inspired teamwork from the gang, with a Quince (Michael Spencer-Davis) whose glasses and moustache suggest high office in the Athenian Carpenters' Union and a Flute (Skye Brandon) who lights up with smug relief at the news that he's not the only man who'll have to play a woman.
I've never seen a better performance of Bottom than Wyn Davies', and when it comes to his meeting with the fairies, I've never seen one as good, especially in his compassion for the ill-fated family of Master Mustardseed. His disguise includes the asinine equivalent of buck teeth through which he projects a confident bashfulness: assurance and modesty in divine equipoise. When Titania throws herself at him, he's surprised but not shaken. His great awakening speech is radiant; you'd be tempted to call him a holy fool if he weren't, underneath it all, so grounded and sensible.
The lovers' scenes in David Grindley's production (he's this year's British import) aren't as consistently wonderful as this, but they have comparable comic flair and the same keen
nose for buried treasure in the text. Laura Condlln's Helena, long-limbed and besotted, goes optimistically down on all fours when comparing herself to a spaniel; she also has a knockout ad lib in response to the question "where is Demetrius?" The young men (Bruce Godfree and Ian Lake) mount a spirited contest in caddishness.
The early scenes are played on Stratford's original Tanya Moiseiwitsch set, reminding us of its unrivalled clarity and efficiency as a Shakespearean springboard. It implodes when we reach the forest, which is represented as a brutalist jungle gym, and it stays imploded until we get back to Athens. There's a corresponding mix of periods in the costumes; the mortals are from the 1950s, on the fearful verge of the permissive society, while the immortals are at least 20 years ahead of them (which I guess is a fairy privilege) being a collection of goths and punk rockers. They do a lot of slithering and a fair bit of climbing. The music's eclectic too; it starts and ends with big-band swing; in between it's ugly, even by punk standards.
Dion Johnstone's Oberon struts and poses like Michael Jackson; now, was this the production's starting point or a topical addition? Yanna Mc-Intosh's Titania is compelling in sections, among them the lament for her friend who died "of being mortal" and her bulletin on climate change, which for once gets reflected in the staging; there's snow this midsummer night. Tom Rooney's Puck casts an even more potent spell when he warns about the lost souls of ghostly suicides; elsewhere, an original performance seems trapped within its pop carapace. As for the mortal monarchs: Timothy D. Stickney is an urbane Theseus, but the production goes for the fashionable idea about Hippolyta being reluctant to marry him. This means as usual that the actress has to tie herself in knots trying to inject hostility into a speech that's plainly a celebration, and then has to stand around miming a mental journey that never gets mentioned in the text. The production then perversely underplays the couple's really important conflict: their differing views on imagination, which is only what the play's about. Still, the final coming together of all the different worlds is beautifully done, justifying a finale ultimo in which the entire cast breaks into wild celebratory dance. With effects like that, the show is a crowd-pleaser. But it's pleasing on deeper levels as well.
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