A Midsummer Night's Dream (Film Review)
Back in my university days, I once took a class about A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which meant watching a lot of productions, both filmed and on stage. That class had the worst possible placement - Friday afternoon - during the spring-to-summer term, and when I tell you that most of the 15 participants showed up regardless, you may gather we had fun. However, with that kind of overexposure to one particular drama, it took me a while to watch A Midsummer Night’s Dream again.
It’s been long enough, I’ve found: the RTD version was eminently watchable to me, with occasional “oh, how Professor Götze would have loved this” asides. Wasn’t surprised my flist was divided, though: Russel T. is that kind of producer.
You know who also would have loved this Dream? Orson Welles, because the way RTD rearranges and reattributes speeches, uses massive cuts and imports bits from other plays, not to mention changes the plot is just the kind of thing he used to pull off. It’s an essentially cinematic approach, or, if you like, a headwriter of a tv series approach, rewriting the scripts he gets from his staff quite a bit, no matter whether they’re newbies or old hats in the business. (It also used to happen to Shakespeare in ye olde Restoration and after days, what with imported happy end to Lear, “off with his head! So much for Buckingham” , the Davenant addition to Richard III, being such a popular line that Olivier still uses it in his film version, and then there was David Garrick in Georgian times rewriting Romeo and Juliet so Juliet wakes up just when Romeo is dying, etc.) Anyway, here’s what I thought of Russell T. Davies having a go at the Bard in this way:
Fascist Athens and Evil Theseus: not unprecedented, though when German stage does Evil Theseus, they use him to make a point about colonialism. I think it was Dieter Dorn (German producer, mostly worked in Munich) who had Hippolyta brought on stage in chains as if to a slave market. Of course, he also did the traditional double casting of Theseus & Hippolyta with Oberon & Titania, and had basically the forest as Hippolyta’s escape dream interlude, with odd moments of recognition between her and Bottom near the end. Anyway, back to Russell: being British (and sometimes I think no Brit or American has yet to meet a possibility of a Nazi allusion they don’t like), he echews colonialism and slavery in favour of fascism, and of course we get the red and black color scheme. Some of the text cuts and reattributions in order to make Theseus evil rather than paternalistic: Hermia gets offered solely the alternative “obedience to her father or death”, rather than the anachronistic nunnery (oh, Elizabethans!) as a third option early in the play, where in the original play when Oberon and Titania list each other’s affairs, Oberon mentions Titania having had a long term fling with Theseus and Titania says so did Oberon with Hippolyta, in the RTD version it’s Titania who had/has the affair with Hippolyta (and Oberon gets her lines describing said affair) and Theseus isn’t mentioned altogether, and in the last act, during the performance of the mechanicals, Theseus (who in the text is the only one who doesn’t make fun of the performers, which I always thought was Shakespeare making a point to the nobles in his audience about how a gracious prince SHOULD behave) gets to say all the snide lines from both the courtiers and Hippolyta and intends to repay his annoyance at the performance in rather a lethal manner when a wild fairy magic induced heart attack finishes him off at the same time the play-within-play ends (more about this later), saving Nick Bottom & Co. from dictatorial criticism of the final sort. All of which works in a far more optimistic way than the Evil Theseus productions I’ve seen, because of the Athens-gets-liberated (both magically and sexually) finale. Incidentally, Theseus is played by John Hannah; considering that the last time I saw John Hannah play a man into treating people as his property, he was Batiatus in Spartacus, I admit I almost missed the occasional “Jupiter’s cock!” exclamation, but hey. (He was more restrained here, his Theseus being more the dead-eyed long term dictator than Batiatus the desperate social climber with the hairtriggery temper.)
The young lovers: like almost all the cast, racially evenly divided (fascist Athens apparently doesn’t have racism as well) - Hermia and Demetrius are black, Helena and Lysander are white - and one of the few productions I’ve seen where Lysander and Demetrius aren’t just bland interchangeable copies of each other. In most Dreams I know, the two boys are about the most boring parts of the play (unless Theseus is good Theseus, then it’s him), but not here. Lysander gets a Harry Potter look (glasses, hair, the entire deal) and a dork-like personality (Hermia, otoh, has Martha Jones’ red leather jacket and the bossy no nonsense demeanor of many an RTD female), shyly waving at Theseus when Egeus makes his complaint in the opening scene. In one of several same sex twists, when Puck finally manages to dose the right Athenian youth with the love flower and Demetrius is under the spell as well, the first one he sees isn’t Helena but Lysander, which: trust our Russell to come up with a new Shakespearean ‘ship. Since the Helena-Demetrius scene is severely cut (no “let me be your spaniel”), he comes across as more sympathetic and she less dormatty (and very much in lust; this is one earthy Helena), and RTD also avoids letting Demetrius be still under the spell by the end of the play; during the final dancing and mingling of fairies and Athenians, Puck de-spells him, and there’s a lovely little moment where he and Helena look at each other and then he kisses her out of his own decision.
The mechanicals: include two RTD stalwarts and British tv legends, Bernard Cribbins and Richard Wilson, and Elaine Page as Mistress (instead of Master) Quince. Nick Bottom is Matt Lucas, most recently on Doctor Who in The Husbands of River Song as Nardole, and he’s delightful and delightfully human as Bottom. (I’ve seen Bottoms who come across at the wrong side of bullying in their interactions with Quince, but Lucas’ Buttom is just endearingly enthusiastic; with Titania, he goes with the flow and is nice and curious about the other elves, which means that later when Theseus gets annoyed by him and Bottom makes it even worse with his eager explanations, you truly fear for him. (The entire play-within-a-play sequence instead of being comic relief has suspense because of that.) An unexpected treat: Fisayo Akinade as Flute, who plays Thisbe. Normally the actors who play Thisbe do so in a high voice, and it’s being done as camp. Not so hear, partly via the changing and cutting of lines, but also because Akinade-as-Flute plays Thisbe straight, no pun intended, throughout, and the big triumph of the play-within-a-play is that suddenly Thisbe’s grief captures the audience who goes from sniggermood at the mechanicals (partly at Theseus’ command, and partly out of nervousness) to being truly moved. Also, Flute is another case of same sex twist: when Mistress Quince hands out the parts early on, the way he and Bottom react indicates they used to be an item, and at the end Flute dances with one of Theseus’ male guards.
The fairies: Maxine Peake is Titania, which by itself would have made me want to watch this version. (And she’s effortlessly both regal and sexual here.) In another big change from Shakespeare, the entire argument between her and Oberon about the Indian boy as the bone of contention is gone. This means their issues with each other aren’t resolved by Titania handing the boy over while still under the influence. Indeed, Titania after getting de-spelled realizes that it had been Oberon who had played this trick on her in the first place (and we get a rearranged line from their earlier dialogue at this point), but they reconcile anyway in order to head off to Athens to crash Theseus’ wedding. Their reconciliation, however, does not mean return to a monogamous status quo; instead, while Oberon helps bring down Theseus, it’s Titania and Hippolyta who are the couple speaking the near (except for Puck) final lines after Titania has freed Hippolyta (who in this version, as mentioned, is her lover). Even the straightjacket Hippolyta wears throughout until freed is given another Watsonian reason (other than simple imprisonment) when it’s revealed she’s also a fairy, unfolding her wings.
Nonso Anozie as Oberon has to strike the balance between jealous and petty enough to use the love flower in the first place, compassionate (with Helena) and mature (in his final exchange with Titania), and I think he manages. Hiran Abeysekera was one of the more restrained Puck’s I’ve seen: I mean, no Puck is ever restrained, but a lot of actors go so overboard that it’s a miracle both mechanicals and lovers don’t die of fright mid play. He also, courtesy of another of RTD’s dialogue reattributions, early on gets to briefly and in vain try his hand as least likely marriage councilor. (In this version, it’s Puck who says “why should Titania cross her Oberon?”)
That the forest and the fairies are equated with sexuality is a fairly common and (by now) traditional interpretation, but usually the return to Athens means also a return to playing by the rules, sexuality channeled into marriage and a new status quo created, which is blessed by the fairies. Here, Dunsinane the forest comes to the city to overthrow the status quo, and while of course there is no realism in all the Athenian guards going from being Theseus’ henchmen to joining the universal celebration after he’s dead, I didn’t mind because the magic of the moment worked for me. (In the same way the big celebrations at the end of Return of the Jedi work; yes, in any dictatorship, the majority is likely not to celebrate because they’re in various ways co-culpable, but it still works on an emotional level.) I also liked all the minor touches in that last celebration sequence - I’ve already mentioned Demetrius and Helena, Flute and the guard, and also Titania throwing a kiss at Bottom while flying with Hippolyta, acknowledging what happened between them. RTD can be deeply skeptical about human nature (not just in Children of Earth and Miracle Day; there’s also Midnight, and let’s not forget the reveal of how humanity ends up in Last of the Time Lords, which btw to this date hasn’t been contradicted, retconned or otherwise rewritten on Doctor Who), but there’s also a belief in the power of kindness and connection in many of his works, and all these little additions are a part of that.
One last DW related observation: obligatory over the top Murray Gold score was obligatory. Patrick Doyle’s sweepingly bombastic themes for Kenneth Branagh’s Shakespeare movies say hello, too. But hey, a low key play this is not.
In conclusion: I enjoyed it, fascist Athens, lightsaber magic duel between Titania and Oberon early on, Dork!Lysander and dance of liberation all. Now let’s see Russell T. have a go at The Tempest!
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1179289.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
It’s been long enough, I’ve found: the RTD version was eminently watchable to me, with occasional “oh, how Professor Götze would have loved this” asides. Wasn’t surprised my flist was divided, though: Russel T. is that kind of producer.
You know who also would have loved this Dream? Orson Welles, because the way RTD rearranges and reattributes speeches, uses massive cuts and imports bits from other plays, not to mention changes the plot is just the kind of thing he used to pull off. It’s an essentially cinematic approach, or, if you like, a headwriter of a tv series approach, rewriting the scripts he gets from his staff quite a bit, no matter whether they’re newbies or old hats in the business. (It also used to happen to Shakespeare in ye olde Restoration and after days, what with imported happy end to Lear, “off with his head! So much for Buckingham” , the Davenant addition to Richard III, being such a popular line that Olivier still uses it in his film version, and then there was David Garrick in Georgian times rewriting Romeo and Juliet so Juliet wakes up just when Romeo is dying, etc.) Anyway, here’s what I thought of Russell T. Davies having a go at the Bard in this way:
Fascist Athens and Evil Theseus: not unprecedented, though when German stage does Evil Theseus, they use him to make a point about colonialism. I think it was Dieter Dorn (German producer, mostly worked in Munich) who had Hippolyta brought on stage in chains as if to a slave market. Of course, he also did the traditional double casting of Theseus & Hippolyta with Oberon & Titania, and had basically the forest as Hippolyta’s escape dream interlude, with odd moments of recognition between her and Bottom near the end. Anyway, back to Russell: being British (and sometimes I think no Brit or American has yet to meet a possibility of a Nazi allusion they don’t like), he echews colonialism and slavery in favour of fascism, and of course we get the red and black color scheme. Some of the text cuts and reattributions in order to make Theseus evil rather than paternalistic: Hermia gets offered solely the alternative “obedience to her father or death”, rather than the anachronistic nunnery (oh, Elizabethans!) as a third option early in the play, where in the original play when Oberon and Titania list each other’s affairs, Oberon mentions Titania having had a long term fling with Theseus and Titania says so did Oberon with Hippolyta, in the RTD version it’s Titania who had/has the affair with Hippolyta (and Oberon gets her lines describing said affair) and Theseus isn’t mentioned altogether, and in the last act, during the performance of the mechanicals, Theseus (who in the text is the only one who doesn’t make fun of the performers, which I always thought was Shakespeare making a point to the nobles in his audience about how a gracious prince SHOULD behave) gets to say all the snide lines from both the courtiers and Hippolyta and intends to repay his annoyance at the performance in rather a lethal manner when a wild fairy magic induced heart attack finishes him off at the same time the play-within-play ends (more about this later), saving Nick Bottom & Co. from dictatorial criticism of the final sort. All of which works in a far more optimistic way than the Evil Theseus productions I’ve seen, because of the Athens-gets-liberated (both magically and sexually) finale. Incidentally, Theseus is played by John Hannah; considering that the last time I saw John Hannah play a man into treating people as his property, he was Batiatus in Spartacus, I admit I almost missed the occasional “Jupiter’s cock!” exclamation, but hey. (He was more restrained here, his Theseus being more the dead-eyed long term dictator than Batiatus the desperate social climber with the hairtriggery temper.)
The young lovers: like almost all the cast, racially evenly divided (fascist Athens apparently doesn’t have racism as well) - Hermia and Demetrius are black, Helena and Lysander are white - and one of the few productions I’ve seen where Lysander and Demetrius aren’t just bland interchangeable copies of each other. In most Dreams I know, the two boys are about the most boring parts of the play (unless Theseus is good Theseus, then it’s him), but not here. Lysander gets a Harry Potter look (glasses, hair, the entire deal) and a dork-like personality (Hermia, otoh, has Martha Jones’ red leather jacket and the bossy no nonsense demeanor of many an RTD female), shyly waving at Theseus when Egeus makes his complaint in the opening scene. In one of several same sex twists, when Puck finally manages to dose the right Athenian youth with the love flower and Demetrius is under the spell as well, the first one he sees isn’t Helena but Lysander, which: trust our Russell to come up with a new Shakespearean ‘ship. Since the Helena-Demetrius scene is severely cut (no “let me be your spaniel”), he comes across as more sympathetic and she less dormatty (and very much in lust; this is one earthy Helena), and RTD also avoids letting Demetrius be still under the spell by the end of the play; during the final dancing and mingling of fairies and Athenians, Puck de-spells him, and there’s a lovely little moment where he and Helena look at each other and then he kisses her out of his own decision.
The mechanicals: include two RTD stalwarts and British tv legends, Bernard Cribbins and Richard Wilson, and Elaine Page as Mistress (instead of Master) Quince. Nick Bottom is Matt Lucas, most recently on Doctor Who in The Husbands of River Song as Nardole, and he’s delightful and delightfully human as Bottom. (I’ve seen Bottoms who come across at the wrong side of bullying in their interactions with Quince, but Lucas’ Buttom is just endearingly enthusiastic; with Titania, he goes with the flow and is nice and curious about the other elves, which means that later when Theseus gets annoyed by him and Bottom makes it even worse with his eager explanations, you truly fear for him. (The entire play-within-a-play sequence instead of being comic relief has suspense because of that.) An unexpected treat: Fisayo Akinade as Flute, who plays Thisbe. Normally the actors who play Thisbe do so in a high voice, and it’s being done as camp. Not so hear, partly via the changing and cutting of lines, but also because Akinade-as-Flute plays Thisbe straight, no pun intended, throughout, and the big triumph of the play-within-a-play is that suddenly Thisbe’s grief captures the audience who goes from sniggermood at the mechanicals (partly at Theseus’ command, and partly out of nervousness) to being truly moved. Also, Flute is another case of same sex twist: when Mistress Quince hands out the parts early on, the way he and Bottom react indicates they used to be an item, and at the end Flute dances with one of Theseus’ male guards.
The fairies: Maxine Peake is Titania, which by itself would have made me want to watch this version. (And she’s effortlessly both regal and sexual here.) In another big change from Shakespeare, the entire argument between her and Oberon about the Indian boy as the bone of contention is gone. This means their issues with each other aren’t resolved by Titania handing the boy over while still under the influence. Indeed, Titania after getting de-spelled realizes that it had been Oberon who had played this trick on her in the first place (and we get a rearranged line from their earlier dialogue at this point), but they reconcile anyway in order to head off to Athens to crash Theseus’ wedding. Their reconciliation, however, does not mean return to a monogamous status quo; instead, while Oberon helps bring down Theseus, it’s Titania and Hippolyta who are the couple speaking the near (except for Puck) final lines after Titania has freed Hippolyta (who in this version, as mentioned, is her lover). Even the straightjacket Hippolyta wears throughout until freed is given another Watsonian reason (other than simple imprisonment) when it’s revealed she’s also a fairy, unfolding her wings.
Nonso Anozie as Oberon has to strike the balance between jealous and petty enough to use the love flower in the first place, compassionate (with Helena) and mature (in his final exchange with Titania), and I think he manages. Hiran Abeysekera was one of the more restrained Puck’s I’ve seen: I mean, no Puck is ever restrained, but a lot of actors go so overboard that it’s a miracle both mechanicals and lovers don’t die of fright mid play. He also, courtesy of another of RTD’s dialogue reattributions, early on gets to briefly and in vain try his hand as least likely marriage councilor. (In this version, it’s Puck who says “why should Titania cross her Oberon?”)
That the forest and the fairies are equated with sexuality is a fairly common and (by now) traditional interpretation, but usually the return to Athens means also a return to playing by the rules, sexuality channeled into marriage and a new status quo created, which is blessed by the fairies. Here, Dunsinane the forest comes to the city to overthrow the status quo, and while of course there is no realism in all the Athenian guards going from being Theseus’ henchmen to joining the universal celebration after he’s dead, I didn’t mind because the magic of the moment worked for me. (In the same way the big celebrations at the end of Return of the Jedi work; yes, in any dictatorship, the majority is likely not to celebrate because they’re in various ways co-culpable, but it still works on an emotional level.) I also liked all the minor touches in that last celebration sequence - I’ve already mentioned Demetrius and Helena, Flute and the guard, and also Titania throwing a kiss at Bottom while flying with Hippolyta, acknowledging what happened between them. RTD can be deeply skeptical about human nature (not just in Children of Earth and Miracle Day; there’s also Midnight, and let’s not forget the reveal of how humanity ends up in Last of the Time Lords, which btw to this date hasn’t been contradicted, retconned or otherwise rewritten on Doctor Who), but there’s also a belief in the power of kindness and connection in many of his works, and all these little additions are a part of that.
One last DW related observation: obligatory over the top Murray Gold score was obligatory. Patrick Doyle’s sweepingly bombastic themes for Kenneth Branagh’s Shakespeare movies say hello, too. But hey, a low key play this is not.
In conclusion: I enjoyed it, fascist Athens, lightsaber magic duel between Titania and Oberon early on, Dork!Lysander and dance of liberation all. Now let’s see Russell T. have a go at The Tempest!
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1179289.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.