A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream
by Adrian Noble

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DVD Reviews of A Midsummer Night's Dream

DVD Review: An excellent production, but way too many cuts
Summary: 4 Stars

From what was there, it was excellent. Finbar Lynch as Puck was a great interpretation of the character. Definitely a racy version of this classic character, but it fits in well with how Shakespeare writes his plays to appeal to both the groundlings and the royalty (ie comical and slightly perverted humor vs. intelligent humor and themes).

Another thing to note is the fact that the actors doubled up on parts, something common in theater (especially during the time of Shakespeare), and in this play it adds more weight to the relationships between the character's "fairy" and "mortal" counterparts. Alex Jennings does an excellent job at being Oberon. He commands respect in his performance. Same goes with his performance as Theseus, although we don't see much of him because of cuts (more on that later). Lindsay Duncan does an excellent job at being Titania. She conveyed the sense that she lived in a sensuous environment, and made this known when she was charmed to fall in love with Bottom. But, because of cuts, her Hippolyta fell flat, and it made it difficult to understand why Hippolyta was so angry at Theseus in the beginning of the play, but came around at the end.

Desmond Barrit was an excellent Bottom, much better than Kevin Kline's in the 1999 production. Bottom came across as a well-meaning, although slightly egocentric man that just wants to put on a very realistic play for the duke. When confronted with Titania, you get the sense that he just rolls with the punches and accepts this new thing thrown at him. His braying as a donkey is awesome, and I couldn't keep from laughing. And the "love" scene between Bottom and Titania is absolutely hilarious. About as raunchy as one can get while keeping all the actors' clothes on.

The mechanicals played their parts well too, although I wish they wouldn't have cut out the part in the woods where Bottom comes up with ideas on how to solve different problems, such as the lion with ladies problem, the wall problem, and the moonshine problem. The one problem they DID address (the need for a prologue) was then cut out in Act 5. Peter Quince never said the Prologue that he was supposed to prepare. He instead jumped straight to the "dumb-show" where the actors played out the play quickly. If one says they are going to add something, then it shouldn't be cut...

Which brings me to the one problem with this production. The overabundance of cuts to the script and scenes. One can notice I haven't mentioned the lovers at all yet. That is because their parts were practically butchered. The lovers are what tie the story together with the fairy land, and I didn't get a sense of that when I watched this production. Lines were snipped, scenes split up, and an entire sequence was completely omitted, which serves to tie in several important parts of the play which dealt with the mortals.

First, Lysander and Demetrius I felt were mis-cast. I felt Kevin Doyle would have been a better Lysander, and Daniel Evans would have made a better Demetrius. Kevin Doyle's Demetrius comes across as flakey and a little slow. Daniel Evans seems a little too angry to be Lysander, who is the slightly more sensitive of the two. Yes, the parts are virtually interchangable, but Demetrius is not dimwitted, he just doesn't like it when there is disorder (the woods). Maybe I'm biased because I am cast as Demetrius myself, but hey, that's my interpretation of the character.

The ladies fair much better though. Monica Dolan did a good job at being Hermia, although there were times when I thought that she could have turned up her energy just a bit (when she had the nightmare about the snake. I didn't get a sense that she was scared at all). Emily Raymond's Helena was excellent, and one could really feel bad for her. It's very easy for Helena's complaining to become annoying (as Calista Flockhart sometimes did in the 1999 production), but Emily avoided this with great acting. One minor complaint though, she should have dyed her hair blond. Helena, according to words in the script, is blond.

What angered me was that the second half of Act 4 Scene 1 was completely cut. This is just too important a scene to leave out. This is where Theseus, Hippolyta, and Egeus are out hunting. In the first part, Theseus and Hippolyta finally make a connection because they both like hunting, and we, as an audience, see how Hippolyta finally falls in love with Theseus. They then come upon the lovers sleeping (either naked or in torn clothing). When they are awakened, Lysander tries to explain that it isn't what they think, and Egeus gets angry and tries to get Lysander executed. Demetrius steps in and explains that he now loves Helena, but that he doesn't exactly know why. This is enough for Theseus to overbear Egeus' will, and then invites the lovers to be wed alongside Hippolyta and himself. It brings closure, explains why the four lovers end up in Theseus' court, and explains what happens to Egeus. Without this scene (as this production did), one is left to wonder why they ended up where they are, and Hippolyta and Theseus come across as rather one-dimensional in their actions.

That, and the boy in this story was totally unnecessary, and I could not understand what he was doing in here. The prospect of a young boy (not even in middle school yet) reading Midsummer is laughable, and it really made no sense.

Aside from those complaints, this is still the best film version of Midsummer that I have seen. Maybe some day an uncut version of the play will be filmed, but until that time comes, this is a very good version to watch.

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