CAST

What an absolute pleasure to be treated to a traditional telling of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” set in beautiful open air gardens with magical lights and mischief, almost as the Bard intended over 400 years ago. It’s rare these days to get a Shakespeare that someone hasn’t tried to fiddle with and retell in all sorts of ways and while sometimes they work of course, there’s nothing like the real thing. It’s a brave decision and puts everything with nowhere to hide, as most of the audience will already know the story, so it depends on the players telling it well. Which is exactly what these players did.

Walking through the gardens to find the performance area was a pleasure in itself, with so many wonderful plants, statues and fused glass pieces. It all added to the magic. By the time the audience sat down some of us were already imagining fairies. The set was gorgeously simple and functional yet pretty, with an area mostly used for “Athens” stage left which looked like an open sandstone temple complete with Greek columns; and stage right some different levels with artificial grass and leaves used for fairy area. Actors used the different heights within this to create many different shapes which was very visually effective.

Henfield always excel at costumes, taking pride in the small details as well as the overall look. The Athenians were appropriately draped in white togas and dresses with belts where necessary. For the celebration scene at the end King Theseus and Queen Hippolyta also had draped gold within their costumes which was craftily done and not at all gaudy. Their faces were similarly painted and the glitter caught the light subtly and sparkled. The common working folk who form the company of players were more modestly dressed as if they worked the land, and the charming thing here was that even the quite obviously drawn on or fake beards worked really well, as if they were part of the characters, adding even more comedy value to the line “I have a beard coming”. The transformation of Bottom with added fake teeth was hilarious, not sure the arms were needed as well although it did add comedy value. The other world: the fairy folk, draped in greens and browns looking as if they had melted out of the ferns and trees and fauna looked amazing. Floatiness for Titania, a crown of what looked like willow reaching upwards as if from a tree for Oberon. Puck donned brown leather cuffs as part of their outfit. The fairies attending Titania all looked like they could have been floating and flying around a garden in children’s imagination. They all looked like quintessential fairies from children’s stories, complete with face paint which went with what they were wearing. There was no willing suspension of disbelief necessary – they were quite simply fairies.

As the sun set the lights came on to assist the audience and the fairy lights worked well with this. This changing of ambience added to the magic that was being created. The music however was an odd choice: everything else was traditional and classical yet the music was modern, and while the lyrics in the music described the play, as music is supposed to enhance or create mood and hold the emotional pitch, the choice of music didn’t quite work. The instrumental dance in the play within a play worked well.

The cast of twenty players all looked like they were having fabulous fun and gave such warmth to the audience. Trevor Hodgson as Philostrate was very watchable and likeable and funny, with the added piece of announcing the interval as well. Jane Haines portrayal of the wall in the play within a play showed some great physical comedy and timing. Ven Malyon as Puck held the audience well on their own at the beginning and it would have been good to see that deepen at the end which could have added gravitas made the performance even better. Ian Henham as the egoistic actor Nick Bottom wanting to play every part and his waiting for adoration from the Athenian crowd at the end was adorable, and his transformation and performance as Bottom with the ass head was laugh out loud guffaw funny. His added noises as part of the performance were a touch of genius. Helen Fyles shone in all her times on stage, her acting is so natural and effortless it’s a joy to watch. Her performance as Thisbe: playing a male actor who was then playing a female tragic heroine in the play within a play, especially the way she “died” prostrate over Bottom, was laugh out loud cackle funny. Another standout performance was Izzy Cryer as Helena. She spoke the language of Shakespeare in such a normalised way it was as if she spoke like that the whole time. Helena can sometimes be a character that the audience want to shake and therefore have no sympathy with, but she played it in such an authentic way it was simultaneously funny and tragic, as well as sympathetic. The intonations and sounds she used as part of her performance made it compellingly real and unbelievably believable.

Most long Shakespeare plays are edited to trim it down to a time that is more usual for modern audiences, which this was not, which meant at just under three hours this was a long time to watch a play, especially outside in changing temperature as the sun sets, plus added choreographed dance of the players which was really funny and a choreographed fight between Titania and Oberon which was a little puzzling. However, director Peter Ingledew should be commended on directing his first Shakespeare and showing a remarkable talent for directing a cast to completely understand every word they are saying and can effectively convey that to the audience. They were amazingly natural and that was so refreshing, enabling the audience to understand every word. Henfield have excelled themselves once more, and looked like they had brilliant fun while they did it, which spilled out happiness to the audience leaving us smiling.