No Slumbering Here: Guildford Shakespeare Company’s Perfect A Midsummer Night’s Dream

With Guildford Shakespeare Company (GSC) the play really is the thing! And they performed it live, then made it available to stream! A wonderful Shakespeare play, in that they worked the language and let it breathe, let it sing! Huge amounts of comedy and fewer gimmicks, fluidities and politics. It was really well done fun!

Wonderfully they really do have ‘Athenian’ woods for their lovers to get ‘lost’ in. But before that we meet Puck!

and the angriest parent ever, with a very unhappy daughter (Hermia)— who loves a man (Lysander), but not the man her mother wants her to marry (Demetrius, smart in a blue blazer).

To escape the unwanted arranged marriage, the couple run off into the woods, complete with suitcases! The mother’s choice of suitor is loved by another woman (Helena, friend of the unhappy fiancée), and this woman decides to pursue Demetrius to tell him of all the plans afoot, impressing her way into his affections and scowling as Lysander wishes her well, having let her in on their secret plans.

Meanwhile, there is a play forming to celebrate the Duke’s wedding…Note Bottom the weaver’s fantastic woven ensemble! The cast are called out of the audience and come bounding out to get their parts!

Some are more impressed than others — (and I’m not sure I trust the director here), as a woman is cast as a ‘man’ (Pyramus) and Flute, who is growing a beard, as Thisbe. But the show must go on and Flute humorously has to learn to pitch his voice! It’s a doomed love piece — with a lion, and a wall! Nick Bottom is a fantastic old thesp, helpfully wanting to do every part — and beware the audience as they maneuver ladder and wheelbarrow nearby.

Next here is Puck to mess things up or ‘help’! In this production, Puck is portrayed as less knowing and more reactive to events.

I cannot get enough of Titania in this production. Her Elizabethan dress is quite something! It moves beautifully and between herself and Oberon we got a real sense of their fight, of Oberon’s malice and cruel revenge, as well as Titania’s Queenly imperiousness.

Oberon also has great clothes! (The Duke and his bride double up as Titania and Oberon here).

This meeting doesn’t end well, and Oberon plots his revenge, carried out by Puck…Will he get the details right?

I love the way that the faery world characters observe and even interact, yet are ‘unseen’ by the Athenian characters — a great intersecting of worlds. Cruel as he is to Titania (to make her fall in love with the first thing she sees, the worse the better), just to get what he wants from her; he has compassion on rejected Helena and wants Demetrius to love her.

Oberon goes about his deed — Titania has the squeakiest fairies about her (voiced only) and great fairy lights in her bedroom bower!

Puck, unicycling away on his errand…has got it right, and also wrong. He has found a man in Athenian clothes, only it is Lysander sleeping in the woods with Hermia chastely nearby. Now Lysander awakes and declares his passionate love for…Helena! who really doesn’t want this.

Hermia awakes and finds Lysander mysteriously gone, unknown to her, chasing Helena. Fair play to all the actors battling the dust here — it’s tremendously UK Heatwave dry!

But the play’s the thing as our rural players start to rehearse. Nick Bottom is in full flow — again check out the weaver’s costume!

Soon becoming the play that goes wrong as Puck arrives to ‘help’, having been berated for adding a love herb to the wrong Athenian man’s eye and to see who Titania will love first. Note Puck unicycling in to the clearing! and then up a tree!

Puck adds some mischief by turning Nick Bottom into an ass! (who Titania then clocks).

The costumes! Puck then has to ‘fess up to Oberon that it’s gone wrong or right as he feels….

Again the beautiful (and funny) intersecting of worlds as Demetrius wanders in, seeking Hermia and Lysander and is guides by the faeries….

Hermia exits in the most wonderful huff through the audience, as Lysander can’t be found (and thanks to the love herb’s work) Demetrius only has ‘eyes’ for Helena!

Oberon and Puck think they have resolved everything!

Helena is about to get very unhappy as she thinks she is being mocked by her three friends and getting a lot of unwanted attention.

Neither Hermia nor Helena can believe their eyes. Hermia and Helena both ironically think the worst — of each other. Puck has turned the viewing into a snacking experience!

Lysander and Demetrius are now lovelorn — for Helena. Whoops, Puck!

A fight is brewing — between the two women and the men try to stop them.

Hermia’s fury against Helena, and Lysander’s rejection, and everyone is something to behold! This is a switch up from the two guys almost scrapping each other to get to Helena. The actors playing the two couples also do a great job of giving meaning and depth (and real feelings) to something which could have been nonsense really. Great physical comedy too and everyone ends up with disheveled garments during the struggles — note the missing sleeves!

Oberon looks on and tells Puck to sort it out! He’s also got what he wanted now, so it’s time to remove the love charm from Titania and free her from the ass! (who is a bit of a tyrant to the squeaky unseen fairy servants).

Here the online drama only lets you see the couples sleeping — which means that you miss the comic disrobing of the ass ‘Nick Bottom’ by Puck and transformation back into human form. Titania is given some revenge as she and Oberon dance together — at first she won’t, then his hands suffer. There is some equality of feeling by the end! Puck also slips some love herb into the eyes of the right Athenian men!

Humorously, Puck puts the sleeping couples together — when they wake, everyone will love the right person! How they heap themselves up and stay up is a marvel!

Reunited, Hermia and Lysander and Helena and a now loving Demetrius run are found, awake, allowed to marry who they want to, and run off to tell each other of their very strange ‘dreams’. Meanwhile, the Duke’s wedding takes place, which means that it’s time for the tragical tale of Pyramus, Thisbe, the wall and a lion.

Poor old Man in the Moon is getting seriously heckled and is not impressed! (The Duke does tend to comment loudly throughout).

But the show must go on!

Giving Moon his moment!

It has to be seen to be believed — Moon, Thisbe and a not very scary lion (with a health and safety warning that this is not a real lion, ladies).

That its behind you moment too!

Pyramus going full ‘I AM BRIAN BLESSED’ with spectacular death scenes all round, plus a wall! It’s the hat for me on both wall and Pyramus. Plus note how sweet the lion is (and deeply concerned about getting their lines right). (There was also another health and safety warning that the deaths we were about to witness were not real!) All was finished off with a jig!

Magically, at ‘fairy time’ the Duke and Duchess transform back into Titania and Oberon, the squeaky fairies appear and caper for us, and there is a very dusty gig!

An enchanting production and great characterizations and fun!

@ Images are from the online stream of the production, the property Guildford Shakespeare Company and only used to illustrate the author’s text, August 2022