Performance: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Sky City Theatre

Review: Susan Budd

The Actors' Company production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is a three-ring circus. It may not please the Shakespearian purists, but is certain to bore no one.

It zings with life, energy and laughs.

Since its opening six weeks ago in Hamilton, it has tightened so that not a single dull patch or clumsy seam is evident.

Stephen Lovatt, who gleams with gloriously primitive red light as Robin Goodfellow, has grown to be the show's presiding genius.

He is wicked, but curiously innocent in his savagery, even when ogling a pretty face in the aisle or slyly caressing a sleeping lover. At times as clumsy as any yokel, at others he soars. Fool to the ringmaster, Oberon, he cracks a fair whip once he takes control.

Cameron Rhodes is a truly original Bottom.

Achingly funny and puffed up with pomposity, he is the quintessential leading man of an amateur theatrical group.

His performance of Pyramus in the mechanics' play pulls out all the stops, with the longest death scene in theatre history.

A veteran of the competitions, he employs every trick of young performers, daintily lifting his gladiator's skirt, mincing a jolly jig and smiling toothily.

The young lovers, who were dominated by Tandi Wright's effervescent performance, sparkle as a balanced foursome.

The square stage is a boxing ring on which the women wrestle their men, joining in a physical battle of the sexes. They are vibrant, believable and hilarious as they struggle through the veils of their illusions.

Robyn Malcolm is a sensual and authoritative Titania, balancing her control freak partner, Oberon. As Hippolyta, from Theseus' manacled prisoner she becomes a dominatrix and wins the heart of her camp and, one suspects, masochistic betrothed.

The three worlds of court, rude mechanicals and fairies spin in wild delight, but never collide.