A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM at THE ABBEY THEATRE, DUBLIN, on Saturday 28th March 2015
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM at THE ABBEY THEATRE, DUBLIN,
on Saturday 28th March 2015
CREDITS
Fiona Bell - Titania and Hippolyta Andrew Bennett - Nick Bottom Des Cave - Robin Starveling Declan Conlon - Oberon and Theseus Shadaan Felfeli - Indian boy John Kavanagh - Lysander Peadar Lamb - Francis Flute Stella McCusker - Peaseblossom Barry McGovern - Demetrius Gina Moxley - Helena Máire Ní Ghráinne - Mustard Seed Áine Ní Mhuirí - Hermia Des Nealon - Tom Snout John Olohan - Snug David Pearse - Egeus and Peter Quince Geraldine Plunkett - Cobweb Daniel Reardon - Puck and Philostrate Helen Roche - Moth Gavin Quinn - Director Aedín Cosgrove - Set and Lighting Design Jimmy Eadie - Composer and Sound Designer Bruno Schwengl - Costume Design
The Imperial tongue has no great incongruity at the Abbey Theatre since all the great Irish (but really Anglo-Irish) playwrights wrote in it rather than the native Gaelic but the presence of the great avatar of the English language is really most welcome even though he never set foot, as far as we know, on the island. Yet this tale of a Fairy Queen has precedence in Shakespeare’s contemporary, Sir Edmund Spenser, who certainly did live in Ireland, possessing an estate at Kilcolman in North Cork where, it is said, he wrote his magnum opus The Fairie Queen. Eventually Spenser’s castle at Kilcolman was burnt down and he had to return to London where he unfortunately died but not before authoring a blatantly inflammatory tract A View of the Present State of Ireland, supressed for more than a century because of its content, in which he advocates a scorched earth policy to subdue the rebellious native Irish and the eradication of the native tongue which in itself stood for an act of defiance: "Out of everye corner of the woode and glenns they came creepinge forth upon theire handes, for theire legges could not beare them; they looked Anatomies [of] death, they spake like ghostes, crying out of theire graves; they did eate of the carrions, happye wheare they could find them, yea, and one another soone after, in soe much as the verye carcasses they spared not to scrape out of theire graves; and if they found a plott of water-cresses or shamrockes, theyr they flocked as to a feast… in a shorte space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentyfull countrye suddenly lefte voyde of man or beast: yett sure in all that warr, there perished not manye by the sworde, but all by the extreamytie of famyne", which, he concludes "they themselves had wrought".
Gavin Quinn’s innovative production takes place in a nursing home and the shiny, translucent surfaces set the action somewhere inbetween films like One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and The Shining. The central conceit seems to really work, providing incongruence, setting the script alight, propelling everything forward with immense verve and impetus. There are three main groups in the play: the court of Theseus of Athens, for Theseus is marrying Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons: the fairy world, represented by Puck, the King of the Fairies, Oberon, his Queen, Titania, and the other minor fairies, spirits and sprites: the rude mechanicals who present their amateur play concerning Pyramus and Thisby which is to be performed on Theseus’s wedding night. One of the players, Nick Bottom the weaver, is magically transformed into an ass, managing to combine the world of the fairies and that of humans which is perhaps the theme of the work, transgression of the world of magic, dreams and fantasy and the wearisome human realities of class, caste, marriage and status. Amateur theatre is also a theme and the enduring mysteries of mistaken identity ensured by the central McGuffin of the love potion. There is good use of space and lighting as the two leading characters sit inside a booth designed to observe the patients and then the moon is painted on the wall beside them. The prosaic surroundings become the magical world of the poet through imaginative transformations. Then encroaching night is suggested by the lighting design as sheets of plastic are painted black and projected on OHPs and the natural world encroaches by parts. Imaginative use of scenery and costume suggest a good deal more than is explicit and the action is wound up the mechanicals own play completed by a Bergomask dance (which is actually a kind of rustic dance originating in the town of Bergamo in Italy) to techno music and the famous ending song. Andrew Bennett stands out as Nick Bottom as does Gina Moxley as Helena but the ensemble cast is genuinely fantastic.
Paul Murphy, Abbey Theatre, Dublin, March 28th, 2015
on Saturday 28th March 2015
CREDITS
Fiona Bell - Titania and Hippolyta Andrew Bennett - Nick Bottom Des Cave - Robin Starveling Declan Conlon - Oberon and Theseus Shadaan Felfeli - Indian boy John Kavanagh - Lysander Peadar Lamb - Francis Flute Stella McCusker - Peaseblossom Barry McGovern - Demetrius Gina Moxley - Helena Máire Ní Ghráinne - Mustard Seed Áine Ní Mhuirí - Hermia Des Nealon - Tom Snout John Olohan - Snug David Pearse - Egeus and Peter Quince Geraldine Plunkett - Cobweb Daniel Reardon - Puck and Philostrate Helen Roche - Moth Gavin Quinn - Director Aedín Cosgrove - Set and Lighting Design Jimmy Eadie - Composer and Sound Designer Bruno Schwengl - Costume Design
The Imperial tongue has no great incongruity at the Abbey Theatre since all the great Irish (but really Anglo-Irish) playwrights wrote in it rather than the native Gaelic but the presence of the great avatar of the English language is really most welcome even though he never set foot, as far as we know, on the island. Yet this tale of a Fairy Queen has precedence in Shakespeare’s contemporary, Sir Edmund Spenser, who certainly did live in Ireland, possessing an estate at Kilcolman in North Cork where, it is said, he wrote his magnum opus The Fairie Queen. Eventually Spenser’s castle at Kilcolman was burnt down and he had to return to London where he unfortunately died but not before authoring a blatantly inflammatory tract A View of the Present State of Ireland, supressed for more than a century because of its content, in which he advocates a scorched earth policy to subdue the rebellious native Irish and the eradication of the native tongue which in itself stood for an act of defiance: "Out of everye corner of the woode and glenns they came creepinge forth upon theire handes, for theire legges could not beare them; they looked Anatomies [of] death, they spake like ghostes, crying out of theire graves; they did eate of the carrions, happye wheare they could find them, yea, and one another soone after, in soe much as the verye carcasses they spared not to scrape out of theire graves; and if they found a plott of water-cresses or shamrockes, theyr they flocked as to a feast… in a shorte space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentyfull countrye suddenly lefte voyde of man or beast: yett sure in all that warr, there perished not manye by the sworde, but all by the extreamytie of famyne", which, he concludes "they themselves had wrought".
Gavin Quinn’s innovative production takes place in a nursing home and the shiny, translucent surfaces set the action somewhere inbetween films like One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and The Shining. The central conceit seems to really work, providing incongruence, setting the script alight, propelling everything forward with immense verve and impetus. There are three main groups in the play: the court of Theseus of Athens, for Theseus is marrying Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons: the fairy world, represented by Puck, the King of the Fairies, Oberon, his Queen, Titania, and the other minor fairies, spirits and sprites: the rude mechanicals who present their amateur play concerning Pyramus and Thisby which is to be performed on Theseus’s wedding night. One of the players, Nick Bottom the weaver, is magically transformed into an ass, managing to combine the world of the fairies and that of humans which is perhaps the theme of the work, transgression of the world of magic, dreams and fantasy and the wearisome human realities of class, caste, marriage and status. Amateur theatre is also a theme and the enduring mysteries of mistaken identity ensured by the central McGuffin of the love potion. There is good use of space and lighting as the two leading characters sit inside a booth designed to observe the patients and then the moon is painted on the wall beside them. The prosaic surroundings become the magical world of the poet through imaginative transformations. Then encroaching night is suggested by the lighting design as sheets of plastic are painted black and projected on OHPs and the natural world encroaches by parts. Imaginative use of scenery and costume suggest a good deal more than is explicit and the action is wound up the mechanicals own play completed by a Bergomask dance (which is actually a kind of rustic dance originating in the town of Bergamo in Italy) to techno music and the famous ending song. Andrew Bennett stands out as Nick Bottom as does Gina Moxley as Helena but the ensemble cast is genuinely fantastic.
Paul Murphy, Abbey Theatre, Dublin, March 28th, 2015
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