Peter Viney's Blog

Directed by Paul Hart
Designed by Katie Lias
Movement by Tom Jackson Greaves
Lighting designed by Tom White
Sound designed by David Gregory

The Watermill Ensemble, on tour

Poole Lighthouse, Tuesday 24th September 2019 19.30

CAST

Everyone played fairies, sang and played musical instruments

Emma Barclay – Bottom (Pyramus) NEW
Molly Chesworth – Puck / Snug (Lion) / Philostrate NEW
Robyn Sinclair – Helena NEW
Mike Slader – Demetrius / Flute (Thisbe) (QUINCE in 2018)
Billy Postlethwaite – Lysander NEW
Emma McDonald – Hippolyta / Titania (2018)
Offue Okegbe – Theseus / Snout (Wall) (2018)
Jamie Satterthwaite – Oberon / Starveling (Lantern) (2018)
Lucy Keirl– Hermia NEW
Peter Mooney – Quince NEW

We saw this production at the Watermill Theatre near Newbury in 2018 (LINKED).

All the online pictures I found were of the 2018 production, not this tour. See the link above.

There we were sitting in the front row, with the flat floor, right next to the action. It was incredibly good. Here it’s on tour on a proscenium stage, in repertory with Macbeth (Watermill 2019). More than half of the cast are new, which might be dictated by it working in repertory with Macbeth (Billy Postletwaite plays Macbeth for instance). We were keen to see it anyway, but equally interested in the shift in cast and theatre space.

It’s the first night in Poole. The set is designed for both plays, but is far more Macbeth at the back. They couldn’t go that high up at the Watermill in Newbury, nor could they have had a bright red front curtain. They drop a backcloth for the forest theme. Most of all, I’d estimate the stage is more than twice as large. The Lighthouse has a seating capacity of 669. The Watermill is 220, or one third the size. While Poole on a wet Tuesday was nowhere near full, the audience probably would have filled The Watermill. So it’s a totally different environment. We both felt the new production was oddly disjointed, lacking the intensity and flow of the original. Where the small cast had been packed tight together, they were spread out, often looking a bit ‘spare.’ The music didn’t sound as tight either. If you’ve done the same play on different stages, you can feel how the split second timing alters. That two yard entrance is suddenly four yards.

The constraints are many with the cast playing multiple roles and playing multiple instruments then having to do the same in Macbeth with the same actors. They need to cast a Hermia who is a high standard pianist because she’s the one who can get off to do it. Offue Okegbe is an essential part on bass guitar (almost a lead instrument) and guitar, and while he is a memorable and very funny Snout as “Wall,” he is a somewhat stilted and wooden Theseus, simply not his natural role. This also leads to ending up with Hermia and Helena of almost identical height. It’s in the text. Casting 101. Helena simply has to be taller than Hermia. They played the lines as written. That is perplexing unless you ignore their physical appearance right in front of you. I thought they made up for it a lot by having a silent “gesture argument” at the rear of the stage whilst Demetrius and Lysander argued at the front. They may have done it at the Watermill like that, but if so, they would have been largely blocked by the men. On Poole’s wider stage, they could move much further apart so not directly behind the men.

There was some odd sound points. I guess most of the cast had head mics, though I didn’t see them all. On Titania, Oberon and Puck they wound up the volume. Before they came on, everyone was perfectly clear and did not sound amplified at all (which might be subtle amplification, but I think not). However, Titania, Oberon and Puck were definitely an amplified sound. I wondered if they’d wanted to apply a little echo to make them sound different. Maybe it was because they were speaking over music often. But it wasn’t subtle.  I don’t know if Hippolyta (Emma McDonald doubling with Titania) had any lines at all, but if she did they were natural, not boosted. Emma McDonald has a rich voice and excellent projection anyway. It’s unusual to double Titania / Hippolyta but not to double Oberon / Theseus. I’d guess that’s down to the exigencies of who has to play which instrument where. The costume changes are lightning fast with evening dress ad top hats marking the fairies … which they all are. Demetrius gets Egeus’s lines in the first scene. it works. Puck (Molly Chesworth) was very much as 2018, but the magic tricks didn’t come across as well.

The Pyramus & Thisbe play was wonderful, though I don’t recall them having a red front curtain to play with last time nor so much backing vocalisation.  Emma Barclay is a new Bottom, but very like the 2018 version, so extremely good. She must be the fourth or fifth Bottom played by a woman with a Lancashire accent.

2019 is a hard year. Two impossible acts to follow … Nicholas Hyntner at The Bridge Theatre (Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bridge Theatre 2019) which we saw twice, and the best play at The Globe in the last two years,(A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Globe 2019) directed by Sean Holmes. They were 5 star and 4 star for me. The original Watermill production got a five too. This is not as good, I regret to say, and at least a star drops for the stage difference between the Watermill and Poole Lighthouse. The other for a certain hesitancy in flow and in the music. It might have been scored higher in a year with less competition.. but then the Bridge production isn’t going to Poole etc, and nor is the Globe one.  This one continues to Cheltenham, Cardiff and Norwich after Poole.

***

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 2018
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bridge Theatre 2019
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Globe 2019
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Sh!t-Faced Shakespeare, Wimborne 2019

PAUL HART
Twelfth Night, Watermill, 2017
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Watermill 2018
Macbeth, Watermill, 2019
Kiss Me Kate, Watermill 2019

BILLY POSTLETHWAITE
King Lear, Bath 2013 (Edgar)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Bath 2016 (Lysander)
Macbeth, Watermill, 2019

JAMIE SATTERTHWAITE
Twelfth Night, Watermill, 2017 (Orsino)
POSH, Salisbury  2015

EMMA McDONALD
Twelfth Night, Watermill, 2017 (Antonia)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Watermill 2018
Macbeth, Watermill, 2019

OFFUE OKEGBE
Twelfth Night, Watermill, 2017 (Feste)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Watermill 2018
Macbeth, Watermill, 2019

MIKE SLADER
Twelfth Night, Watermill, 2017 (Andrew Aguecheek)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Watermill 2018
Macbeth, Watermill, 2019