Performance: A Midsummer Night's Dream

WestpacTrust Theatre

Hamilton, July 26

Review: Susan Budd


Scintillatingly witty, stylishly sexy and gloriously, outrageously entertaining - the New Zealand Actors Company production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is all this and more.

Shakespeare's best-loved comedy is shaken till it rattles, rocks and rolls into vibrant life to prove that the Bard is alive, well and kicking over the traces.

The strength of Simon Bennett's production is that, with all its surface brilliance built from quirky costume design, eclectic music and choreography, it has a core of deep seriousness and superb performances from a great cast that works immaculately as an ensemble. Wonderful as are many individual performances, smooth teamwork lends the play the sense of satisfying excitement that is more usually found on the sports field when the well-oiled machine of the All Blacks pumps into action.

But there are no boring infractions of the rules. The action is fast, furious and full-on, with never a moment for the audience or the actors to draw breath.

From the opening scene of fairies lurking in half-light to the strains of In My Dreams I Walk With You to the lovely final tango of the lovers circling the stage, a world of magic is created.

The magic has force and strength, but it is psychedelic rather than dark, flashing in glorious technicolor against the muted background of reality.

Tim Balme's Oberon and Stephen Lovatt's Robin Goodfellow are both extraordinary, complex portrayals of character and a great comic double act, revealing the strength and amorality of elemental forces while making us laugh till we cry.

The young lovers are a remarkable quartet. Helena (Tandi Wright) and Hermia (Ingrid Park) are feisty young women who take no nonsense from their swains, wrestling them physically and verbally with real passion beneath the play. The rude mechanicals broadly satirise familiar figures from any street in town and the fairies are fantastic figments of the imagination.

With sure mastery, Bennett draws every element of the play's anarchic world into a deeply satisfying entertainment.