Peter Viney's Blog

by William Shakespeare

Everyman Theatre Company

Directed by Paul Milton
Deigned by Charles Cusick Smith & Phil R. Daniels

Mayflower MAST Studios, Southampton
Thursday 18th April 2024 14.30

CAST
Tweedy – Bottom
Jeremy Stockwell – Puck / Egeus / Snug
Troy Alexander- Oberon / Theseus
Natalia Winsor – Titania / Hippolyta
Oliver Brooks- Lysander / Starveling / Moth
Thomas Nestrop – Demetrius / Snout / Cobweb
Laura Noble- Helena / Flute / Mustardseed
Nadia Shash- Hermia / Quince / Peaseblossom

+ two fairies who must also be the understudies

This is a production by Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham with a tour to Malvern, York, Southampton and Coventry. I am always biased strongly to provincial producing theatre.

A main cast of just eight for the tour plus two understudies who also acted as fairies. That compares to eighteen and seven musicians at the RSC earlier in the year. It means working their socks off for the Lovers / Rude Mechanicals / Fairies. I can’t name the understudies because there was no programme. A programme is an investment (and a potential profit) and if it sells out you may not reprint for the last two weeks, but an A4 sheet is normal in the circumstances. We hadn’t seen any of this cast before (unusually) and we wanted to know who they were and what they’d done.

The touring stage set is superb. At one level it conjures The Globe with the central inner stage, and columns that look like the Globe pillars. It’s set well forward on the stage, and the amount of ultra high speed costume changes required means every cast member must need a change station right behind the set.

When they get to the forest, we have cut outs of bushes which are wheeled on. They have sets of steps concealed behind so Oberon can stand above everyone and the four lovers can go up and down over hill and dale. They really utilise those steps. When the four lovers go to sleep as dawn breaks, each is behind a bush, so they can slip off, change, then when required slip back on. The inner stage allows Titania’s bower to be pushed in and out. The set is extremely well designed.

The lighting is also very good, with a starlit sky and smoky haze above the set in the forest scenes. Sound design again gets full marks. There are many short pieces of recorded incidental music … no credit, no programme … but they will be composed. There are two full original composed songs, both excellent. The first is the faeries plus Titania (Natalia Winsor) adding a soprano wordless section. The other is the final dance / song. The sound effects for this comedy need precision timing, bangs, crashes, farts, thumps, dongs and dings. With modern digital boards punching them in is much easier. In the days of tape, you’d never get them spot on (which is why for our shows we used a live drummer). They get them perfectly here.

Costume is extreme. It leans to pantomime, but why not? At least it’s something strong and bright. There is a concept. The Athenians are all dressed in white (except Egeus in pale blue, some with gold bits, and in invented garb that never existed, though perhaps Byzantine almost describes it. For a change, the important lines from Oberon to Puck about recognizing them by their Athenian garments work. So often it’s just ignored in productions. Puck is covered with fronds and has Pan horns on his head. The faeries are similar. The Oberon costume is perhaps unflattering around the stomach though. The mechanicals are in modern dress … well, modern dress-ish.

It’s a radical take. The order of scenes is changed, so that it opens with the first Rude Mechanicals gathering and assigning parts. They enter through the audience too. That works well, with the long plank spinning scarily over heads as they come through.

Tweedy (Bottom) and Jeremy Stockwell (Puck) come together with this from Cheltenham pantomimes, and played Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot at The Everyman. Tweedy, playing Bottom, is a clown. As in circus style professional clown. I think William Shakespeare would have approved as characters were indeed labelled ‘clown.’ The one review I read before said it’s a vehicle for him. I disagree. It’s an idea to allow the extremely rapid costume changes. He has solo wordless clowning pieces throughout, each riffing off a famous line. To be or not to be, becomes To bee or not to bee, with a bee routine. Once more unto the beach! is the classic clown deckchair routine. Yes, I’ve seen versions before but not for decades (I’ve even done lights on it in variety show days). The execution is sublime and more physical even than usual. The best My kingdom for a horse! is the third, and had me in tears of laughter. These silent pieces are essential to allow the concept to operate. Shakespeare’s clowns would have improvised lines. They would have added business.

As well as changing order, it is heavily cut. It runs to two hours and that includes the longish clown sequences. I noticed at the end Theseus / Hippolyta lines which are often cut were kept, but that was covering costume changes. The logistics of costume dictate so much. A good move for a small cast was giving Philostrate’s lines about the competing plays to Lysander. If you hadn’t known otherwise, you wouldn’t notice any loss.

The cast is young (apart from Tweedy and Jeremy Stockwell). The production is played large, for broad comedy. There is a lot of directorial attention to 21st century gestures and facial expressions. There are a lot of ideas I’ve never seen before. The projection is loud – Titania is absolutely furious with Oberon, not just angry. Accents are used to effect, Jeremy Stockwell’s Puck benefits from a Welsh accent. There’s authentic for you. It’s clear that Shakespeare’s Company had a Welsh actor who did comic parts. Look you. West Midlands is used by a few mechanicals.

The visual power applies to the lovers at last. Hermia is short and Helena is tall (as it insists in the text, but is often only “just about”) Having a very tall Lysander (Oliver Brooks) with a short Hermia adds to the effect, though then I saw myself and Karen in a mirror on the way out and we are about the same. Nadia Shash looks totally different as Hermia, Peter Quince and Peaseblossom. Great comedy.

Laura Noble’s height adds to her very good portrayal of Helena, then as Flute / Thisbe she does totally laconic West Midlands wooden and is very funny indeed – again modern gestures and reactions add a lot. I doubt that it will be long before we see her again. Thomas Nestrop as Demetrius / The Wall is another adding some laugh out loud gestures and moves.

The Pyramus and Thisbe was marvellous. No added props just costumes – some recent ones have had elaborate bits. Tweedy as Pyramus was truly memorable clowning with a very long sword and a very long fart joke. I was watching the Man in the Moon with lantern (Oliver Brooks) and Pyramus – and admiring the timing and rehearsal needed to make that work so well. No plot spoilers.

Jeremy Stockwell manages to shift from Puck to Lion – I can see why they used Lysander to replace Philostrate. The more normal reduced cast ploy is to have Egeus do the lines. They wouldn’t have had time.

We both thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it and laughed out loud. We loved it. It’s well-pitched for the sort of tour where you hope to bring in large school parties too – fart jokes but no Bottom donkey’s appendage jokes. We were so pleased that if we’d been free tomorrow afternoon, we’d have gone again. On star ratings? It’s superb at what it aims to do. Obviously if you’re going for genuine shimmering magic and studied and careful presentation of the verse, those are not its strong points. Nothing wrong with that. However, when I consider the five star productions I’ve seen (Peter Brooks, The Bridge, RSC Play for A Nation, Emma Rice at The Globe, RSC 2024) I’m going to have to be strict. It’s three star, but the very top end of three star and really a fun evening out.

***

THE THEATRE

The MAST is a great facility.Large café / bar, very friendly and pleasant staff, and yet again I end up wondering why Southampton audiences are always below expectations, unless it’s a musical at the main huge Mayflower Theatre (see Edward Scissorhands … virtually full). This was a thin Thursday night. I’ve been pondering this for thirty years. The MAST was built as the Nuffield City just before Covid, went belly-up and was taken over by the Mayflower. In the 1970s we went to the old university campus Nuffield ten times a year on average. It was always packed. It was a major producing theatre too, with productions of The Hired Man originating there, as well as the best Taming of The Shrew I’ve ever seen.

Then into the 80s the audience just disappeared. We’ve sat there as two of only six in the paying seats in the 90s, though there were a few students in the very subsidised section … only a dozen though. The campus Nuffield had two major problems. Draconian parking rules meant that a weekday matinee wasn’t even an option. Then it was out on a limb with nowhere to eat except takeaway kebab shops and KFC in the area.

That was why they moved into the city centre. A major issue tonight was starting at 7 pm. Why? Every other theatre starts at 7.30 or even 8. That used to happen on the campus. Early starts. When you have a great touring Shakespeare (and this is), you’d expect to draw audiences over a 35 mile radius at least. That brings in Poole (us, for example), Bournemouth, Christchurch, Salisbury, Lymington, Winchester, Romsey, Fareham, Portsmouth, Chichester. Starting at 7 pm is madness. How do people travel an hour, then eat? We left Poole at 3.40, arrived at 4.30. We walked from the car park and looked at restaurants … places open all day don’t look promising (or rather look grim) unless you’re into Nandos, all-day pubs, Caribbean ‘tapas’ or all-you-can-eat ‘Thai Tapas.’ We found a great little Italian restaurant that opened at five and was full by 5.30. We were out at 6.20, electing to have our coffee at the theatre. But we can leave home at 3.40. People who work and/or pick up kids can’t do that. There were three groups of late arrivals – the last was around 7.15.

We wondered if the 7 pm start was to appeal to schools, but there weren’t any. Why not? We always see groups of sixth formers at Poole or Bath. I very much hope the matinees were packed with schools – it’s an ideal ‘first Shakespeare’ and would be great for GCSE age.

So, the other thing is Bath, Poole or Chichester audiences are heavily weighted to the older part of the community. That’s not Southampton’s population profile. Given that the older group are the keen theatre goers, there’s the car park issue. At Poole or Chichester it’s right by the theatre … Poole is weaker on theatre, but fills its symphony concerts every Wednesday. The best evening car park for the MAST is behind the main Mayflower Theatre and it’s reasonably priced. It’s not far on a dry night (in spite of negotiating the horrendous roadworks by the Guildhall). It would be in rain. That’s made worse by the certainly modified electric scooters and electric bikes whizzing around Southampton’s new cultural plaza. They should have planned in a car park right by the new theatre.

ANOTHER ISSUE

Most people know that planes no longer serve peanuts. If you’ve seen the effect on someone with an allergy, you’ll know why. Most schools ask kids not to bring peanuts. We have a grandchild with a peanut allergy. She’d be safe enough with someone eating peanuts a table away in the café, but they sell snack packs next to the fruit pastilles and Maltesers … i.e. for someone to take in. It’s a confined space. Someone next to you eating peanuts in a theatre would really be dangerous. I’m astonished they sell them, especially as they do a lot of community work with kids.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

five star
Tony Clarke, Stage Talk Magazine *****

four star
CharlesHutchPress online **** (York)

three star
Michelle Robinson, Fairy Powered Productions ***

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

• A Midsummer Night’s Dream – RSC 2011
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Headlong 2011
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Filter 2011
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Selladoor 2013
• A Midsummer Nights Dream – Handspring 2013, Bristol
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Grandage 2013
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Globe 2013
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Propellor 2013
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream RSC 2016, ‘A Play for the Nation’ at Stratford (February)
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream RSC 2016 Revisited Stratford, (July)
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Globe 2016
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream – BBC TV SCREEN version 2016
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, 2016
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bath, 2016
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Young Vic 2017
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Watermill, Newbury 2018
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bridge Theatre 2019
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Globe 2019
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Watermill on tour, Poole 2019
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Sh!t-Faced Shakespeare, Wimborne 2019
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Globe 2023
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, RSC 2024
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Everyman 2024, Southampton MAST
• Dream (streamed, interactive), RSC broadcast 2021
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Wanamaker Playhouse 2025