Theatre on Kew
A Midsummer Night time’s Dream is the final word woodland play, and it’s arduous to think about a extra enchanting setting for Shakespeare’s perennial mystical seasonal delight than the spotlit stage below Kew Gardens’ majestic heritage timber. At all times enriched by the expertise of being considered alfresco, the fairy-dust peppered comedy takes on a brand new dimension when the Bard’s star-crossed lovers and mischievous fairies cavort in uniquely botanical environment. The pure backdrop lends an incomparable earthiness to the play.
The Australian Shakespeare Firm, below the Creative Directorship of Glenn Elston brings a remarkably contemporary, dynamic and wickedly humorous take to the 400-year-old play. The corporate has a three-decade lengthy historical past of outside efficiency and homegrown partnerships with Kew’s counterparts Down Underneath – the Royal Botanic Gardens of Melbourne and Sydney.
The manufacturing is tailored to go well with the house and there’s a lot of enjoyable available. Jono Freeman is an agile, tumbling Puck, guiding the motion of the play flanked by a phalanx of punk fairies, alongside Hugh Sexton’s dour, brooding Oberon.
The quartet of lovers present loads of stomach laughs as they conflict with one another beneath the celebs. Solenn Mara-Lewis is an totally bewitching Titania, delivering her speech on the “forgeries of jealousy” in a most beguilingly impassioned method.
The Impolite Mechanicals, below the management of Peter Quince, the carpenter (performed with appreciable comedic panache by Madeleine Somers) amuse with many up to date changes to the textual content and a hilarious Pyramus and Thisbe interlude. Elston directs with tempo and creativeness, whereas lighting designer Peter Amesbury weaves his personal sort of magic, flooding the stage and frondescence surrounding it with washes of pale yellow and inexperienced, animating the traditional woodland within the darkness and amplifying the enchanting nature of the play with dramatic flashes of purple.
This can be a stellar present, bringing world-class acrobatics and a contact of cabaret to the stage while adhering faithfully to Shakespeare’s script. It’s a vigorous, accessible outside manufacturing that may delight younger and outdated alike. I took my seven-year-old daughter alongside (she was certainly one of a number of younger kids within the viewers) and each of us have been enthralled and entertained all through. On a balmy August night within the capital, there may be absolutely no higher theatrical deal with.
A Midsummer Night time’s Dream runsat Kew Gardens till 1 September 2024.
For tickets, please go to:theatreonkew.starlight-tickets.co.uk
