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Nicholas de Jongh's rating
, An Eastern enchantment
By
Nicholas de Jongh
14 Mar 2007
Rebuilt, restructured and transformed into an ideal arts centre for the 21st century, the Roundhouse bursts back into dramatic life.
Its first theatrical offering is Tim Supple's sensational, sexy and spectacular version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, delivered by Indian and Sri Lankan actors in seven Asian languages and some English too.
Red-silk curtains, climbing-ropes and a pseudo-boxing ring, dance, acrobatics and Indian music serve as its essential, interfused elements. The building, no longer set up for theatre-in-the- round, forges a fresh, intimate relationship beween actors and audience.
This dream of a production particularly targets young audiences bored by Shakespeare. It recovers that sense of magic and enchantment of which the play has been purged by Anglo-Saxon directors.
Purists and saturnine intellectuals who go around swanking about how they loathe live theatre should keep away and shut up. This is not for them.
Supple compresses and cuts the text, impresses with no abstruse concept or shaping of forceful, individual performances. The intermittent English speaking is not up to much and the mechanicals' entertainment no particular fun.
Rehearsed in Pondicherry and aimed initially at touring over India, the intention was, though, to appeal to eyes and heart rather than ears and minds - to put Shakespeare's language second to the theatrical business of suggesting in fresh ways what madness it is to fall in love. The shock tactics come early, late and often.
The stage, with white floors and white back-wall, at first looks barely functional. Ajay Kumar's plump, loin-clothed Puck rubs the eastern equivalent of a genie's lamp.
Modern-dress Indian authority figures strut their threatening stuff and Hermia and Lysander escape into the forest.
The white flooring is torn away to reveal red Indian earth. Then, in the first theatrical coup, fairies burst through those back-walls, which prove no more than frail paper covering for a bamboo climbing-frame.
The gulf between the real-life world of the Athenian court and the forest-realm of the fairies or the dreaming unconscious is revealed as no more than a flimsy barrier.
The atmosphere of magical strangeness develops and intensifies. Those exuberantly dancing fairies, twirling wooden poles like jugglers, are no fey creatures, but athletes ascending ropes that serve as trees in a fantasy forest.
Archana Ramaswamy's seductive Titania is cocooned in one of those pink silken sheets that hang like ropes and serve as hammock beds. She wakes, like some chrysalis emerging as common house-fly, hopelessly enamoured of Joy Fernandes's adorable, gravely pompous Bottom. This egotist wears donkey's ears and an embarrassing penile appendage, a cross between aubergine and courgette, that he vainly tries to hide.
PR Jijoy's handsome, brooding Oberon observes the queen's humiliation with relish.
Thanks to Puck's attentions the quarrelsome quartet of lovers, earlier immersed in heavy, sexual grappling, fight it out in that pseudo-boxing ring, where they are caught up in a cat's-cradle of string, stretched from rope to rope.
This brilliant directorial conceit suggests just how far they are literally and metaphorically tied up in love.
The quartet emerge from the forest quite liberated. West End musical producers spend millions on technology and special effects to try to make magic.
Supple, his actors and designers, together with three musicians whose strings, percussion and wind instruments conjure up gorgeous, atmospheric sound, manage to strike what most of those musicals do not - notes of enchantment.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Reader views (10)
Acrobatics and stunts do not make for a great play. It was like watching a foreign language film with no subtitles. Do not understand the logic behind using languages that are not understood by the audiences. Probably if they had said it was only about 50% Engish, I would have saved my time. The explicit and crude sexuality (nothing sensual at all) does not at all take into account the Indian cultural sentiments.
- Vani, India, 14/01/2008 05:47
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As a person who speaks or understands four of the Indian languages used and also knows the Dream back to front, I wondered how this would appeal to a solely English speaking audience. While the fairies and the mechanicals were sprightly and unaffected, I found the lovers (except Helena who had some charm) very stilted indeed. In any language. Especially Hermia(Yuki Ellias) who was absolutely wooden and amateur. The uninhibited love scenes were a surprise though. I didn't expect quite so much heavy breathing. I've heard the lines delivered with more life in a school production. I enjoyed the accuracy of the translations. Titania and Oberon were splendid. Sinuous and sexy and great stage presence, being trained dancers and martial artists both. They were not as effective when they doubled as Hippolyta and Theseus. Puck and Bottom were naturals too. Recast Lysander, Demetrius and Hermia (a really miserable trio with not an ounce of charm) with more attractive and engaging young people and it might work better. It is a curiosity and interesting in patches. But this production needs an elocution coach. They tend to mumble the lines and so even the few times they deliver in English, you can barely hear, and have to rack your brains to remember what you know.
- Sheila Sivanand, Bombay, India, 10/01/2008 13:16
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I thought it was a very entertaining, energetic performance.
The set and Indianization lent itself to the 'Dream'. It reminded me in many ways of the pujah performances I have sat through on many a night in India with all male casts dramatising scenes from classical Mahabharata and the Ramayana extracts. The language mix was compelling because it made one listen and watch the action carefully for clues. Bottom with an Indian English accent was superb so was Puck, he really seemed to be enjoying himself. Oberon and Titania went well but the lovers I lost a bit. The Indian languages we heard were interesting - flowery Urdu for the Athenian court scenes, Punjabi or was it Marathi between the lovers and basic street Hindi for the rude mechanicals. The latter came across rather like 'It Aint 'alf Hot Mum’. The Donkey's phallic was a masterpiece! It emphasised (emphasis on size) the importance of the act of "translation" in Shakespeare. The Dream is all about translation, in the sense of interpretation, and transformation leading to metamorphosis not to mention insemination. I am sure Shakespeare would have agreed to the Karma Sutra embraces by the lovers and Titania. Very Indian evoking the temple friezes without the hypocrisy so evident in Bollywood productions.
The set with what looked like bamboo window bars, hidden by paper to begin with, improvised hammocks and silk ropes reminded me of Peter Brook's 1970 production on trapezes, ladders, etc.
- Roger Foord-Evans, Buckland-in-the-Moor, Devon, England, 15/11/2007 14:21
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There are plenty of Shakespeare plays in English. This intrepretation was inspired and visually stunning. It is intersting to see another culture's take on an English classic.
- Laurence, Worcester, 30/09/2007 18:04
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This is not the way one wishes to see the Bard. Whoever he may have been, one thing is certain, he wrote in English. He is not easy to understand but putting bits of a play into seven other languages adds nothing to the communication. It spoils the play and I am disgusted that my tax had been squandered by the British Council on such a travesty of a play. I am also astounded at the sexually explicit nature of the production coming from cultures where public kissing is not usually portrayed. Visually it was well done but I go to Shakespeare to hear the unequalled words. Denied them we left at the interval. Having wasted money we chose not to waste time also.
- Graham Weeks, Greenford, England, 24/09/2007 13:52
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I'm 15 and I went to see it as part of my drama coursework and I found it really interesting. My friends hated it but I thought it was clever the way they made an English play, Eastern with the use of traditional instruments and saying the lines in eastern languages. Overall I quite enjoyed and found the players quite funny.
- Melanie, London, 17/09/2007 19:51
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I share the disappointment expressed above. The professional reviewers made such a fuss about it that no doubt the auditorium was filled with people who had paid a fortune for their tickets on the strength of those opinions. There was talent there but ill used. The language problem made acting more necessary but instead we got too much shouting and acrobatics. It had a few moments but not enough. And far too much waste paper!
- Julia Matcham, London, 17/09/2007 18:51
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It was worse than anything I have seen before.
- Dev, London, NW7, 17/09/2007 18:51
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Could not agree more with the first reader review - professional critics who state that: 'Purists and saturnine intellectuals who go around swanking about how they loathe live theatre should keep away and shut up', really don't quite get the fact that this turgid and frankly boring production would put just about anyone off enjoying Shakespeare. I love live theatre, but this just killed it off stone dead, despite the sumtuous visuals and percussion - quite a feat really given the hype and spin surrounding it.
- Chris M, London UK, 17/09/2007 18:51
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I'm sorry - but I did not find this "sensational, sexy" or "spectacular". It started off very slowly and many of the audience could not stand to come back after the interval. Enjoying the rhythms and sounds of all the various languages did not save it from descending into confusion, even for those who knew the story backwards and it was even hard to make out the couple of lines in English. A big disappointment.
- Anna, London, NW6, 17/09/2007 18:51
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