BMH Productions bring a new innovation to the now well-established summer season of open-air Shakespeare in Oxford: two plays in one night. The resulting performances of Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream, each lasting one hour in running time, are pacy, pared-down and punchy takes on two of the Bard's classics: a perfect introduction for any Shakespeare novice. All the essentials (and, I guarantee, almost all of your favourite lines!) are cleverly preserved, with deft cuts to the text heightening the sense of energy, intensity and action sometimes lacking in full-length productions.
Edward Blagrove is a brooding, haunted Macbeth; the tragic hero's mental state fragile from the outset beneath the martial physicality of the medieval knight-at-arms. Far from the stereotype of the cold manipulator, Cate Nunn brings a warmth to her portrayal of Lady Macbeth as a woman seeking greatness for husband out of genuine regard for him, as well as a conviction of their shared entitlement to royal status. A neat touch is the casting of Carolyn Taylor as a magisterial Duncan, with the costume design and actors' simmering standoff in the brief confrontation between Duncan and Lady Macbeth subtly evoking the power struggle between Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I.
The manic and otherworldly wyrd sisters permeate the drama, their lingering presence at key moments drives the action forward and reminds the audience of the fatal cyclicality of the events that unfold.
What follows is a free-spirited (pun intended) and at times anarchic Dream. The cast show incredible versatility in morphing from tragic to comic roles in the time it takes the audience to down a hot chocolate. Having been hacked down just before the interval as Young Siward, Glen Young is promptly resurrected in full fairy garb as Oberon, while Liza Cosier's reappearance as the temptress Titania evokes a whole new backstory to what Lady Macbeth's waiting-gentlewoman gets up to on her nights off…
Helen Kavanagh returns as the archetypal mischief-maker Puck. Her irreverent modern-English asides, far from seeming unwelcome interpolations in Shakespeare's text, reinforce her cheeky camaraderie with the audience as we are caught up in her elfin schemes. The Athenian lovers are led a merry dance and show all the heightened emotion of their rapidly redirected affections in a series of fresh and quick-paced scenes. Justine Malone in particular brings a rare feisty fierceness to the role of Hermia, not taking any nonsense from her Lysander (Freddie Cambanakis) or anyone else for that matter.
As ever, the motley mechanicals provide many of the comic highlights, from Alistair Nunn's childlike excitement as super-keen-to-impress Nick Bottom, to his less enthusiastic comrades; Maria Crocker is an initially uncooperative Francis Flute who finds herself bitten by the acting bug mid-performance, and Laura O'Mahony's timid Robin Starveling shows how it is possible to conquer that stage fright in their comically shambolic version of Pyramus and Thisbe performed before the royal court.
A spellbinding evening's entertainment.