A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

by William Shakespeare
Performed by Chapterhouse Theatre Company
Williamson Park, Lancaster
Saturday 14 August 2004

Reviewed by Michael Nunn
Photography by John L Burkinshaw

Midsummer madness – and mellifluous magic

One of Shakespeare's most oft-performed comedies, A Midsummer Night's Dream has spellbound audiences – literally – since the turn of the seventeenth century. Rightly so – it is a tale at once confused, magical, funny, humane, and divine in nature that never fades or palls in the telling. At least, in the hands of a competent bunch to deliver the goods it doens't.

That is just what we got last weekend in the highly appropriate and glorious venue of the wooded, quarry-sided Dell in Lancaster's Williamson Park another hidden jewel of North Lancashire). Chapterhouse were up to their usual high-spirited and splendidly articulate form in their second of three offerings this year.

This was a new production and not what we saw last autumn in The Grand Theatre (read review). Newly directed by last year's Mercutio from Romeo and Juliet, Philip Stevens, the new take gave us all the magic, mayhem and madcap maladroitness that are the essentials of the comedy.

Set in the early years of the last century, the Duke and his wife-to be, a laid-back and huntin'-and-shootin' Theseus with a horizontal, chain-smoking Hyppolita graze their way through the court, whilst the neurotic and demented courtly lovers show clearly why the unstable Woody Allen chose to make his own curious and emotionally-dodgy film version of the story.

It is often the "rude mechanicals', or creative proletariat or thespian rustics depending on your political correctness, who steal the show. Their rendition of the classical Pyramus and Thysbe tale was side-splittingly funny, and matched the insane, outrageous antics of the drugged and disoriented courtly quartet as they tumbled, fumbled and fought their ways through the forest near Athens. Don't ask about Bottom's wayward helmet, whose bristle dropped off …

Last year I noted that Chapterhouse had introduced audiences to some new, young rising stars of the stage. This year's choice goes to Antonia Lewis, whose Helen was a masterpiece of Noël Coward-esque hysteria and up-front, unladylike rage, and Alex Scott Fairley's commanding and evanescent portrayal of Oberon, King of the Fairies.

That personal choice is not to denigrate the ensemble playing, which was excellent, and bore – again – Chapterhouse's sterling hallmarks of superb diction and the exemplary use of entrancing music both to highlight the magical atmosphere and to adorn Shakespeare's wonderful songs. The staging and movement were also excellent, and whisked the youngsters along with us oldsters into the realms of fantasy that only the bard's verse and the purest illicit substances taken in the best of company can achieve.

Unlike speed and the other narcotics, though, Shakespeare's comedown at the end is also, perhaps uniquely, still magically cathartic. This was a truly memorable evening: a wonderful play exquisitely performed, in an incomparable venue, and with the added luxury of a fine, warm and dry night.

The audience was truly blessed as well as bewitched. If only the rest of life were like that …

Copyright © 17 August 2004
Michael Nunn; John L Burkinshaw

For links to Woody Allen and his 1982 film,
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, see:
woody_allen_profile_2000_article.shtml
www.mgm.com/title_title.do?title_star=MIDSUMSX