A Midsummer Night's Dream @ Theatre Royal
An evening of absolute professionalism.
In selecting a Play for the Nation to co-stage with amateur theatre groups throughout the UK, the Royal Shakespeare Company has made the right choice. A timeless cocktail and an intoxicating mixture of love, comedy and fantasy, and its sub-plot of a 'play within a play', A Midsummer Night's Dream is not only one of The Bard's most popular plays, but also one which still valiantly challenges any residual prejudices about class and gender. This celebratory tour starts and finishes at Stratford Upon Avon, and in between visits twelve other theatres. A BBC documentary, The Best Bottoms in the Land, will later chart the story of how the project became reality.
For its visit to our Theatre Royal, director Erica Whyman has drawn her cast of Mechanicals from Norwich's own The Common Lot who, under the direction of Simon Floyd, assemble as Quince, Bottom, Snout, Flute and Snug to tread the boards alongside the RSC professionals.
Set in the post-war 1940's, a period of austerity as well as social change, the simple stage is built around a backdrop of 'shabby-chic' bomb damaged walls. The impending society wedding of Hippolyta (Laura Harding) to Theseus (Sam Redford) is preceded by magical events in the woods involving four young lovers - Hermia (Mercy Ojelade) and Lysander (Jack Holden), and Helena (Laura Riseborough) and Demetrius (Chris Nayak). Abandoning the oft-used coupling of roles, Oberon, King of Fairies, is played by super-cool white-suited Chu Omambala, and his wife Titania by the exotic Ayesha Dharker. Puck is a delightfully playful and cheeky Lucy Ellinson who, complete with top hat, keeps the audience engaged whilst casting magic on stage. Into this mix wander the Mechanicals, the acting troupe of tradesmen led by Peter Quince the carpenter.
And it is the marvellous performances from the members of The Common Lot that really steal the show. Whilst the comic spats between Demetrius and Lysander are choreographed to perfection, and the jealous insults traded between Helena and Hermia are expertly executed, nothing prepares us for Bottom with a Norfolk accent, brilliantly delivered by Owen Evans. Together with Dan Fridd, Amelia Hursey, Vic Stone, Emma Trindall, and Eve Pandolfi, the Norwich team turns the 'mummer' version of The Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe into a slapstick comedy delight that has even the RSC actors burying barely-disguised hysterics. Full credit to Simon Floyd's directing from this end. And credit, too, to the boys and girls from Sprowston Community High School who appear as members of the Fairy Train. They, too, contribute to what is a flawless first night performance.
Far from being a token exercise in theatrical egalitarianism, this performance was, without exception, an evening of absolute professionalism. If a similar level of excellence is achieved throughout the tour, and from every regional cast, then the Dream 16 project will most certainly have achieved its goal, in this, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. Mind you, if Owen Evans is not voted 'Best Bottom in the Land', then I am most certainly a donkey's uncle.
