King's College Chapel
Saturday 11th to Monday 13th October
Dir. James Lewis; Pembroke Players Japan Tour

Four Stars

I should have loved to have seen this production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ on its Pembroke Players Japan tour. It would have fitted in so perfectly in a place far removed from the everyday realities of student life: from the opening chords of Finn Beames’ haunting, moving score to the luxurious, stylized costumes and energetic, uplifting performance of the cast, everything evokes the otherworldly, the magical.

However, James Lewis’ production of Shakespeare’s comedy has somehow managed to transfer back successfully on home turf, in the suitably picturesque chapel at King’s. Yet what the Chapel makes up for in atmosphere and occasional reverberating acoustics, it lacks in the practicalities of an actual theatre: even three rows back, it was hard to see what was happening for most of the time. This was particularly irritating at times because the production is incredibly physical, with actors rolling about on the floor in nearly every scene. They leap in to the air, throw each other over their shoulders, jump upon one another – it is exciting and new, but frustrating to watch when half eclipsed by the head of someone in front of you.

Having said that, the woman sitting next to me whose view was just as obscured as mine was practically rolling in the aisles, in union with the actors, with constant laughter. In this sense, this production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ has been played with a constant emphasis on the comic elements of the play; laughs that it (usually) manages to get. The hysterical Helena (Scarlett Creme) and clown-like Nick Bottom (Adam Hollingworth) are the broad slapstick tempered by the mischievous, nuanced performance of Kamal Hussain as Puck. One particularly brilliant scene involved the lovers spinning, cavorting, rollicking backwards under Puck’s command, and Lewis has managed to create a cohesive team for such group scenes.

It is at moments such as these that this engaging, though at times exaggerated, production comes alive, and is well worth seeing.

Emma Hogan