twilightdawning

A writer's thoughts – mainly about music, sport and theatre. Shakespeare, Bob Dylan, live shows, New York Yankees

Revisionist Shakespeare is off with the fairies

Posted on July 9, 2025 by twilightdawning

Where: The Bridge Theatre, London Bridge, London

When: July 1-3 2025

What: A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

Today’s productions of William Shakespeare’s plays tend to fall into two categories. There are those which are archly modernist and revisionist. Then there are those which try to retain the spirit and art of the original manuscript – not in a hidebound sense, nor always in Elizabethan dress.

An example of the former would be most of the output of the Royal Shakespeare Company over recent years. Many reviews of their work can be found here on this site¹. An example of the latter would be the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival:

“… no knee-bending to trendy revisionism… but rather a tour de force of Elizabethan drama”²

So, where would the current production at the Bridge Theatre fall? In the former or the latter?

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More Than Cool Reason Ever Comprehends – The Lunatic, the Lover, The Poet

Posted on March 11, 2024 by twilightdawning

What: A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

Where: The Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST), Stratford-Upon-Avon

Who: The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)

When: February – March 2024

So, when I come to assess a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I am considering a play that I have acted in, directed and produced on a professional level. Whatever else this means, it means that I am coming to view a play that I have strong opinions about. I consider that I have a firm understanding of the play’s strengths.

This I think is important to establish in the critique I offer – not least because I think that Eleanor Rhodes’ direction of the play is remarkably uneven.

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“…Your play needs no excuse…”

Posted on March 2, 2016 by twilightdawning

What: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

When: 25th February 2016

Where: The Royal Shakespeare Theatre

When the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) last staged “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (https://twilightdawning.com/2011/08/09/what-masques-what-dances-shall-we-have-to-wear-away-this-long-age-of-three-hours/) , they achieved a production which gave us a strong and evocative (transformed) Bottom and Titania but a rather forgettable Hermia and Helena. Five years later, I think they have perhaps given us the opposite whilst once again managing to give us an entertaining production which like its predecessor is worthy of accolades.

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