Midsummer, Fairfield Amphitheatre, (Digital version) March 2022 **

THEATRE (Digital)

Based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

By Sheoak Productions

At Fairfield Amphitheatre 8-14 March 2022. At Bendigo 16-20 March 2022

Reviewer: Kate Herbert (Review of recorded show.)

Stars: **

 This review published only on this blog. KH

 

Midsummer is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, set in the fitness industry of 1980s in Sydney. Why? You may well ask. Shakespeare’s clowns are shoehorned into the 1980s rather awkwardly and incomprehensibly.

 

The production is described as Commedia Del ‘Arte, but it lacks the flair, complex clowning and comic business lazzi of La Commedia. One mask maketh not a Commedia show.

 

The text uses Shakespeare’s words peppered with  contemporary references and slang, a mode which has been known to work. Consider the Australian Shakespeare Company's recent (2022) production of The Comedy of Errors in the Botanical Gardens in Melbourne. However, the problems are myriad in this production. The overacting pushes the dialogue and the style veers from the melodramatic to something resembling sketch comedy.

 

The Duke bounces around in his gym with his PR manager while his wife, Hippolita, with an American accent, is launching a new gym program. Meanwhile, Lysander and Hermius are a male couple and Helena intrudes upon their secret love.

 

The Mechanicals, wearing masks, check shirts and gym shorts, work hard at their scenes, but seeing these breathless characters laughing a lot at their own slapstick doesn’t make their comic business any funnier.

 

The production caters for the VCE 2022 Drama Play list and perhaps there is something in it for students to analyse, but its shortcomings are too many to ignore.

 

By KATE HERBERT

 

CAST

TROUPE ACTOR / LYSANDER / BOTTOM / PUCK

Jon Harris-Black
TROUPE ACTOR / HELENA/ TITANIA / EGEUS/ SNUG / PUCK :
Jacqui Martin
TROUPE ACTOR / HERMIUS / SNOUT / PUCK
Scott Middleton
TROUPE ACTOR / THESEUS / OBERON / FLUTE / PUCK:
Guy Talon
TROUPE ACTOR / DEMETRIA / HIPPOLYTA / QUINCE / PUCK
Seon Williams

DIRECTOR: Mandy Ellison
PRODUCTION MANAGER AND MOVEMENT DIRECTOR: Scott Middleton
SCRIPT ADAPTATION: Mandy Ellison & Scott Middleton
SET DESIGN ARTIST: Sam Lempio Franklin
SOUND DESIGN: Jon Harris-Black
LIGHTING DESIGN: James Bodin
STAGE MANAGER: Emma Herben
PROPS and COSTUME COORDINATOR: Emma Herben
EDUCATION RESOURCE NOTES: Mandy Ellison