The new Artistic Director of the Globe Theatre, Emma Rice, has had a big success with her first production at the helm.
She’s chosen that evergreen favourite A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM to kick things off. Perhaps because its youthful exuberance is a symbol of the fresh life she wants to breathe into the place or simply because it’s one of the few Shakespeare plays she’s read.
She’s admitted not knowing very much about Shakespeare in interviews and even announced that she finds listening to radio soap opera THE ARCHERS more enticing than reading the bard.
There’s little chance of being bored in her new production. When I first heard about the innovations she proposed I must confess I thought it sounded ghastly. The Globe has always prided itself on staging Shakespeare in a way that is as close to how it would originally have been presented as possible, with minimal lighting and just the actor’s natural projection. It came as something of a shock then to discover there would be amplified sound and that the venue would be decorated with electric lights for this production. In fact critics have found this break with tradition enchanting.
There are other daring innovations too. If you’ve seen the play you’ll recall that there is a quartet of aristocratic lovers who get lost in an enchanted forest and are teased by fairy folk, casting spells to make each fall in love with the wrong partner. Emma Rice has changed one of them from a young woman to a gay man. Again the general consensus has been that this breathes fresh life into the heart break and comedy.
The comic sub-plot concerns an amateur theatre group and in this production, perhaps redressing the gender imbalance, they’re mostly a hearty “Women’s Institute” type bunch, seemingly assembled from the Globe’s famously grouchy volunteer ushers, with a health and safety officer as Nick Bottom, the one who gets transformed into a donkey.
It looks visually ravishing and the Globe have released a series of gorgeous photographs depicting billowing fabric, white balloons and a curtain of blossom that wouldn't look out of place in a Bollywood movie, perhaps taking its cue from the Indian boy briefly mentioned in the text.
Being bold and audacious really does seem to have paid off. This is a production that will be talked about for a long time to come and if the prospect of three hours of Shakespeare sounds dull, a trip to the Globe could change your mind.
This MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM heralds an exciting new chapter in the life of this beautiful replica of an Elizabethan Playhouse, on the banks of the Thames.
One of the exciting things about London Theatre is the chance to see big stars in the flesh, and often VERY close up.