Thursday 11 September 2014

Birthmonth Day Eleven: A Midsummer Night’s Dream


DAY ELEVEN.  AGE ELEVEN.


Today is The Official Birthday of The Birthmonth, so hooray for me.

The last show that The School/College took me to see was by far the best.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (by William Shakespeare/The Watermill, West Berkshire Playhouse/Feb-March 2003).

I am not a fan of Shakespeare generally and having studied far too much of it at school, I was not likely to be impressed.  But this show was the funniest thing I had ever seen.  It was an all male cast and they nailed it.  They made lines I had heard a hundred times before finally come alive and they were so over the top, the audience were soon in hysterics which quickly heightened the actors’ performances and absolutely everyone in that theatre (which appeared to be a barn) had a whale of a time. 

I’m a big fan of OTT performances channelling humour – it’s what makes Frasier and Back To The Future so perfect and so choke-with-laughter funny over and over again, and if you have to go on stage, this already makes everything a bit silly because we all know it isn’t real and you’re pretending you can’t see us, so to actually channel into that silliness instead of ignoring it is just bliss.

I also thought Theseus was pretty hot.


Have you ever seen a Shakespeare play that worked?


No comments:

Post a Comment

I look forward to your enthusiastic and loving comment.