A Midsummer Night’s Dream

I remember once seeing a Brazilian production of the Dream so dark that it ended with the noble lovers casually slaughtering the mechanicals after they’d staged their tedious little play.  That Dream had nothing of the pastoral redemption and fairyland sweetness usual to Shakespeare’s play – and nor does this Kip Williams STC version.

In Robert Cousins expansive white and black space, flanked by figures in terror hoods, Robert Menzies is suitably malevolent as Theseus, whose decree forces the four mismatched lovers to escape to the woods.   A stirring soundscape (Nate Edmondson with composer Chris Williams) rumbles throughout and Damien Cooper’s lighting, initially at least, adds powerfully to the threat. 

This is a tale then more about sex than love, and the brutality of gender and sexual control, lessons for lovers as they wander the wilds stripped to their underwear.    

Here the fairies of Titania (Paula Arundel) are toxic mutants and Matthew Backer’s agile Puck a late-night leftover from Mardi Gras.  By midway, Williams has master-minded an artfully dystopian world, stripped of sentiment and, for all its modishness, with good actors clear and articulate with the language (if helped by mics).  

Only later does this clarity and compelling verisimilitude begin to flag. As the lovers chase and scream after each other, and blood begins to stain the stage, the dark notes become monotonal, a straight-jacket to the play’s wit and wonder.   

The bleary eyed lovers Hermia and Lysander (Rose Riley and Rob Collins), Helena and Demetrius (Honey Debrelle and Brandon McClelland), may have discovered themselves, but in this woodland what drives us to the end are the village mechanicals.

In a production already studded with invention, Josh McConville’s marvellous Bottom and his troupe stage the funniest version of that final little play that I’ve seen.  Deliciously characterised by Alice Babidge’s costumes, they steal the show (and mock its new dark themes)  - Susan Prior, Bruce Spence, Jay James-Moody, Emma Harvie and Rahel Romahn.

Martin Portus

Images: Susan Prior, Rahel Romahn, Josh McConville, Bruce Spence, Jay James-Moody and Emma Harvie, & Paula Arundel and other cast in Sydney Theatre Company’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. © Brett Boardman