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Henry Hitchings's rating
Lyrical Judi Dench is a dream fairy queen
By
Henry Hitchings
16 Feb 2010
When Peter Hall directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream 48 years ago, Judi Dench was a crystalline Titania. Now she is reprising her role as the queen of the fairies, with Hall again sprinkling the magic dust on Shakespeare’s most enchanting comedy.
The action is set in Athens, but steeped in the hues of Elizabethan England. Dench’s Titania corresponds to the mythic Virgin Queen — red-haired, imperious, and bespangled with symbolic jewels, vividly recalling her turn in Shakespeare In Love.
Consequently, as the fairies practise their ethereal mischief, there’s more than a hint of political intrigue. The play depicts the agonies of youthful devotion, and its imagery contains elements of romance, farce and the surreal, yet here there’s also a fresh concern with Elizabeth’s self-fashioning as a “faerie queene”.
Elizabeth Bury’s design conveys this ingeniously. The stage is mostly bare, but polished to a gleam, resembling an antique mirror, and around it are cutouts that import the crowding shadows of the forest — and of history. This is pastoral with more than a touch of Tim Burton about it, and the palette is initially sickly, moving towards sepia tones and then a silvery luminosity as discord gives way to harmony. These visual effects are deftly calculated. This, after all, is a work deeply concerned with ways of seeing and styles of loving. “Doting” is one of the play’s keywords; another is “eye”. Infatuation, Shakespeare suggests, is an ocular infection.
The best of the performances evoke this idea of desire as a strange ailment. Dench is both regal and lyrical, communicating an affecting musicality; an exit becomes the sort of glimmering farewell you’d find in a John Donne poem. Rachael Stirling is excellent, too, as the “painted maypole” Helena — achy and pining, but also saucy.
The men, it’s fair to say, are not as strong as the women. The relationships are underdefined, and there’s little in the way of midsummer sexual swelter. Theseus, the Duke of Athens, and
Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons, are supposed to be celebrating their nuptials, but convey all the ardour of a couple trying to choose a new shower curtain at Homebase.
However, crucially, the “rude mechanicals” are a delight — a troupe of am-dramming ninnies who sound as though they’re from the Black Country (perhaps a cleverly submerged joke about Elizabeth’s suitor Lord Robert Dudley). They start well and get better, with Oliver Chris especially satisfying as Bottom, the bungling weaver.
In the end it’s the comedy that speaks loudest in this enjoyably fluent interpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Yet beneath the absurdities and physical frolics, it has a wintry quality that’s genuinely surprising.
Until 20 March. Info 0871 2301552.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Reader views (4)
My husband and I saw a notice in a magazine and, with pure impulse and abandon, booked an inexpensive flight, hotel, and tickets in the front of the "seated pit" within the hour, all to see Dame Judi Dench in this wondrous production. As a teacher playing hooky and a retired teacher, we shall always remember the glory of Dame Judi, the Hall interpretation, and the spontaneity that propelled us to Kingston last Saturday, the 20th of February, as a high point in a life we have filled with the pleasures of theatre and the joy, lately, of travel to your lovely country. If you can get to The Rose, itself a gift, go to see this play as soon as you can. Eat a cheap pasty for dinner, save money by giving up anything else, but submerge yourself in Shakespeare as it is meant to be just this once. Thank you for providing us this opportunity, truly a"once-in-a-lifetime" experience. This is a grand production. Back in my classroom today, teaching Shakespeare, I know I have been truly blessed by this experience.
- Christinechambers-Merriman, Greensboro, NC, USA, 25/02/2010 17:27
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Brilliant production. I was spellbound, best shakespeare play I've seen for a long time.
Shame it has only got a short run.
First time I've been to the rose,as well. Reallly nice theatre.
- Stuart, kingston, 25/02/2010 12:55
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Pleased as I am by Henry Hitchings' glowing review of A Midsummer Night's Dream I should point out to Fuzzylogic that the Rose doesn't receive any funding from the Arts Council. Its support comes from our brilliant local authority (Royal Borough of Kingston) and Kingston University. Our productions are necessarily commercial as a result. With Arts Council support we could do more work of this tremendous quality and tour it.
I very much agree with the argument for broader arts broadcasting: we all lament the demise of the South Bank Show.
By the way: there are still some tickets available for THE DREAM - some at prices appropriate for even the most direly credit crunched audience members: £8!
Stephen Unwin
Artistic Director,
Rose Theatre Kingston
- Stephen Unwin, Kingston, 16/02/2010 13:52
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Read this review in a state of jealousy as the Credit Crunch precludes most "live" visits to theatre, concerts, opera now. BUT I look in despair at the listings in the `RT` - most of which offer unmitigated repeats and `audience catchers`. The Arts Council of Great Britain was set up to bring culture to the masses [the un-educated poor] and has degenerated into supporting the cultural elite attracting audiences which might more properly be the remit of `Tourist `England`?
Time for the BBC in conjunction with the Arts Council to set up a new TV Channel "BBC Arts UK"? The BEEB do us well with the Proms but this Midsummer is not Midsomer and deserves to be seen by a national/international audience. NOT 24/7 repeats but 1/2/5 special broadcasts of real excellence a month to bring to a deserving wider audience what their intellect deserves and from which a lot are deprived. Dumbing Down? Pure SHAME on OUR National Broadcasters for ignoring OUR fine National Heritage of live theatre and performance. If you chose to throw the seed onto stony ground do not complain if it does not grow.
- Fuzzylogic, Billericay, 16/02/2010 12:43
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