Ali Goldsmith, Jemima Brown, Bella Aubin, Kat Collings in A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Bridge (Credit Manuel Harlan)The venue has form when it comes to staging promenade productions where the main playing area is populated with continuously moving plinths, and overhead suspensions are used to dramatic effect. Production designer Bunny Christie’s ambitious contrivance is a feast for the audience’s eyes and an assault course for the cast, as they’re required to leap to new playing positions, disappear beneath the stage, or else dangle above it.
Imprisoned in a glass case at the opening of the show, is the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta (Susannah Fielding) who in defeat, is to yield to wedded bliss with her captor, the less-than-trusting Duke of Athens, Theseus (JJ Feild). Soon, they will morph into Titania and Oberon, jealous and combative Queen and King of the Fairies, as the setting repairs to a wood outside Athens. The location change is partly due to the elopement of Hermia and Lysander (Nina Cassells and Divesh Subaskaran) who are pursued by Demetrius (Paul Adeyefa) who has the hots for Hermia, and Helena (Lily Simpkiss) who has the hots for Demetrius. Further woven into this muddlesome mix, is a sub-plot in which a group of lowly tradespeople plan to honour the Duke at his nuptials by staging a play for his enjoyment, which of course, they choose to discretely rehearse — you guessed it — at a nearby woodland location. When Oberon refuses Hippolyta’s request for a young Indian boy to attend her, she wreaks havoc by instructing her sprite Puck (David Moorst returning to the role) to make mischief.
It is worth noting that Moorst has significantly reined-in the more skittish neuroses which were so distracting when he first played the role. His impact on events is far more effective and in keeping with the overall tenor of the production as a result. More ostentatious, and pitched squarely at the scene-stealing/crowd-pleasing (you decide) end of the spectrum, is Emmanuel Akwafo’s queeny high-camp portrayal of Bottom (with all the obvious, thickly layered gay jokes the name affords) as he parades in a bright yellow jumpsuit, later adorned with his post-transformation ass ears (cue more of the same).
Hytner’s production continues to share emphasis between the comedic and lust elements, with considerable deployment of slapstick and deft timing. Several cast members are relatively fresh-faced newbies or making professional debuts. The best of these is a notable Lysander played as a leather-jacketed swain and the pathetically doting, yet befuddled-by-attention Helena. The male-on-male and female-on-female snogs during the lovers’ argument in the woodland mix-up, appears to have been tightened-up since 2019 and proves less disruptive to the overall pace of the piece. All the same, the production still hits a running time of 2hours 40mins (including the 20min interval), but thankfully there is rarely a lull to proceedings and this wonderful show flits by in a fluttering of fairy dust. In these trying times of tedious global egos, who among us doesn’t delight in a dose of magical mischief and mayhem?
A Midsummer Night's Dream Tickets
Other cast members:
Egeus - David Webber
Quince - Felicity Montagu
Flute - Dominic Semwanga
Snout - Jem Rose
Snug - Molly Hewitt-Richards
Starveling - Hilson Agbangbe
Peaseblossom - Bella Aubin
Cobweb - Ali Goldsmith
Moth - Kat Collings
Mustardseed - Lennin Nelson-McClure
Fairy - Jemima Brown
