Flabbergast Theatre turns Shakespeare’s magic fairy tale into a farcical Victorian mis-en-scene
Flabbergast Theatre’s production A Midsummer Night’s Dream is, in the best sense, a farcical tale of fairy and mismatched love that a Victorian audience would expect. All the players paint their face in an old fashion with pale white, tinted with soft pink and a red dot on their cheekbones. To consider that Wilton’s Music Hall is itself an original Victorian building, it does provide such ambience.
The cast adopts an overtly exaggerated acting style. Most times they stretch their limbs while speaking the lines in a hyperbolised manner, which feels like watching Victorian melodramas, or exactly those dramas Lessing and Brecht would have watched and criticised in their own times. Although the cast endeavours to present a lively and bustling sense, sometimes it may feel a bit too pretentious and noisy, flattening the nuanced emotional layer intrinsic to the original play. Midsummer is a farce but it is not at every moment farcical. Their constant effort to excessively pander to its audience in every minute ultimately leads to tiredness and boredom.
For instance, the “two cherry sharing a stem” speech, by Helena (Vyte Garriga) to Hermia (Paulina Krzeczkowska), reveals their deep relationship in their girly adolescence. Garriga gives Helena some emotional depth and the duo shares the speech with genuine fondness. However, the competing duo, Lysander (Elliot Pritchard) and Demetrius (Nadav Burstein) are doing some farcical mime-fighting behind the girls, trying to attract audience’s attention. It is actually quite distracting rather than interesting, as director Henry Maynard tries to cram everything into every scene, resulting in a cluttered presentation without a consideration of simplicity. Plus, some of the scenes look a bit familiar, such as the colourful feather duster in the-play-within-a-play, or the interaction between Snug the lion (Reanne Black) and Bottom as Pyramus (Simon Gleave), where the lion tries to scare Pyramus by roaring but turns out to be just meowing.
Some parts of the show, though, are quite enjoyable and original. For instance, the pre-show interactive welcome sets a playful tone by fooling around with the audiences. Sadly, such interaction does not continue in the play itself. The set design (also by Maynard) is beautiful and effective, featuring a massive pageant wagon adorned with a floral bed on top. It enables quick costume changes, allowing the cast to seamlessly switch in-between the Athenian nobles, the fairies, and the craftsmen wearing masks as if they were characters from Lord of Rings. I also quite like the scene before the couples awaking, featuring intricate puppetry mis-en-scene with dim light. The use of a footlight as moonlight in the play-within-a-play works well as it constantly shooting the wrong person. Last but not the least, the company has done great music, really melodic and amusing.
I can never say no to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Magic, farce, “comedy of errors”, and of course, Good Puck’s final warm yet melancholic farewell. However, lacking intricate emotions and an overall backing agenda, this rendition hardly evokes such warming melancholy after all these farces.