A Midsummer' Night's Dream at Rutland Open-Air Theatre, Tolethorpe
THE Rude Mechanicals are the best thing about this Stamford Shakespeare Company production which veers from the mundane to the briliantly bucolic.
Their panto antics, particularly those of Terry Kenny as Bottom, relieve the occasional tedium of a frolicsome fable that is enchanting in its innocence yet gossamer-thin in substance.
Essentially a series of tableaux, the Dream is a reminder that two-thirds of England was once covered with forest and much of its population was in awe of goblins and sprites.
If it has any relevance to today's society it's to remind us to hug a tree before it's coated in concrete.
Tolethorpe is of course the ideal place to see this nonsense.
The summer sun sets on sylvan glades, the stage is festooned with gigantic spiders' webs and nymphs lurk around the rocks and pool.
Whether that's enough reason for the SSC to stage the Bard's rustic romp for the 12th time in its 41-year history when other more meaningful works should perhaps get a hearing is up to them.
The revered Jean Harley directed the Dream no less than nine times, with the very first production in the monastery garden of Stamford's George Hotel.
Thankfully she has since resisted any temptation to update or radicalise the scenario but the latest Caroline Stephenson/David Fensom show really does need a kick up the Bottom.
Sadly too many of the current cast equate excitement with a lack of enunciation. Some gabble. Some shriek. Some speak their lines with insufficient emotion.
Puck is agile but lacking in comic wit. And it's high time Mendelssohn's music was pensioned off.
At least Richard Byron-White as Oberon leads by example.
The rich resonance of his voice offers a master class in projection and clarity.
Lucy Swannell is a feisty Titania, the fairy folk are nimble and well posed and Jasmine Berry sings divinely.
But the real joy comes with the craftsmen Quince, Flute, Snout, Snug and Starveling performing their play within a play.
Peter Saunston, James Kenny, Clive Hankers and John Cook work brilliantly as an ensemble and Bottom's transformation from weaver to ass is accomplaished with some panache.
Terry Kenny's magnificent braying and hoof-stomping even woke up the punter next to me who had nodded off 15 minutes earlier.
Brian Martin
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Monday 28 May 2012
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