If there ever was a time people were precious about staging Twelfth Night at Twelfth Night or A Midsummer Night’s Dream in June they are long gone. Re-setting Dream in Winter is a bold stylistic choice but by NO means the boldest Headlong have made in their new adaptation. Headlong choose to treat Shakespeare as they would any new writer whose play lands on their desk - anything can be tweaked, edited or adapted on the way to a great show, nothing is off limits. I’m hoping their motto is No Holds Bard (see what I did there?).
Headlong lived up to their ambition here, and then some. We were treated to some brilliant updates, like Bottom and co as the catering team for Theseus' mansion. Bottom (Danny Kirrane) as Executive Chef, with his mix of exquisite and gross, was superb. Puck (Sergio Vares) interfering as a Mechanical and all the doubling of parts was both neat and claustrophobic in a good way. Winter and the snowy landscape made us shiver and huddle in our furs (slightly redolent of Narnia?) and the monochrome palette (plus notable red highlights) was visually stunning.
After having taken in a lot of student drama lately, it was luxurious to see a pro production so slick, so well designed, so richly layered, and - let’s face it - so well budgeted. The company bios are full of Shakespeare plays and the speeches were vivid, retaining their rhythm and bounce but infused with passion and meaning. Our favourite scene was the four lovers lost in the wood and fighting. Superb stuff, and nice to see homegrown talent (Lou Jackson as Demetrius trained in Oxford). Hermia (Tiwa Lade) stood out in particular, for dynamic range and immediacy. I’d forgotten how Helena has to act 17 different shades of angry without much respite, but Tara Tijani remained likeable and compelling. And Demetrius was so horrid to Helena early on I was amazed he actually managed the switch to sweetiepie at the end.
Theseus (Michael Marcus) and Hippolyta (Hedydd Dylan) double as Oberon and Titania and Headlong have chosen to bleed through these characters more than I’ve seen before. Oberon is kinder and less haughty, Titania more Kate Bush-feisty. Their human counterparts are where things begin to get really weird: yes, they’re a minotaur-fighter and an Amazon Queen, but isn’t this Shakespeare picking stock heroes? In Headlong’s production it’s less wedding nuptials than a murder-suicide waiting to happen. And perhaps it’s worth quoting the trigger warnings here: “Contains loud noises, strong language, scenes of sexual content, drug use and gunshots.” I would absolutely endorse the Playhouse’s age recommendation of 12+ (if not 15) partly because of the genuine menace and partly because this shouldn’t be the first Dream you see. It’s so strongly rebelling against canon, you need to know what canon is. (I’m thinking someone at Headlong saw Adrian Noble’s version for the RSC in the 1990s with Stella Gonet and a whole stage of twinkly lights and has been brooding on it ever since.)
Can you feel a “but” coming? (Or maybe a “Butt” - see what I did there?) Why does something feel clunky in the nether regions of this adaptation? The design and acting have nailed that blend of pared back and still lush that takes so much skill, and is the thing amateur productions struggle with the most (viz Quince and co). They’ve GOATed it. But I don’t think the concept has. We are told in the programme that this version hinges on the unknown fate of the Indian child, borne of colonisation and fought over like a chattel; and climate change. True, the fairies fighting have thrown the seasons topsy turvey, and Shakespeare was experiencing horrible weather at the time (mini ice ages, drought so severe a horseman could ride across the Thames). But we’ve probably all played the GCSE Lit game of taking a phrase out of context and using it to prove something absurd, just because we can. A writer’s life can be unravelled and threads knitted into his work without that being the point he was trying to make all along, and if you want contemporary ills writ large in Dream, how about gaslighting, coercive control and what we used to refer to as “honour killings”? These are what continue to disturb me in a number of Shakespearean romances: not asses but elephants in the text. Which is not a cryptic crossword to be dismantled and twisted inside out word by word. Plus (spoiler), if you love wordgames and someone’s going to snort coke in scene 1, how can you not refer to it as “wondrous strange snow”?!
There's also something a bit youthful about the deliberate boldness, as if the director peeking out of the curtains waiting to see if we get it, and if we're shocked by it. The trouble is, the self-consciousness of this Dream's darkness lessens its impact. It's a ripping fast-paced production, that opens with Puck keeping us waiting. We don't know whether to laugh. Why is he toying with us? Such harmless teen malevolence is perfect for Puck but in a core production value it's a bit wearing. And it's not all harmless: the ending is deliberately, malevolently shocking. I don't want to ruin the surprise but Pyramus and Thisbe are channelling Tarantino.
If you’re over 18 and you’ve always thought Shakespeare was too soppy, then this is the Dream for you. Love it and fear it. If you’re expecting a burnished classic then this might be your nightmare. Though it is a gorgeous one.