I did it! I finally managed to secure myself a seat in a London theatre. It's been a while and I sincerely apologize. Of course when my drama professor offered twelve pound tickets to see my favorite Shakespeare play on Valentine's evening I jumped at the chance. It's not like I had any other plans *sigh.*
I am about to reveal my newness to London when I say that it had never occurred to me that there was anything in Hammersmith other than the tube station. Until this past week it was simply the place where I changed trains to get to Covent Garden. Now I realize how wrong I was; Hammersmith is home to a very charming and eccentric theater that has a history of hosting quite successful and barrier breaking performances. The Lyric-not to be confused with its more famous Shaftesbury Avenue twin- is quite ordinary from the outside, but its interior looks like a preschool for experimental theater fanatics. The walls are white cement splashed with streaks of primary colored paint, stark but pleasing. It houses several restaurants and bars, suggesting that an outing to the theatre can be a great addition to a night on the town. I was delighted to see the whole place packed with people, most of them students!
Once I saw the production I realized why it had attracted so many young people. Filter Theatre has a knack for taking the old and dry and making it intriguing, shiny, and new again. Their past exploits include a rock 'n roll Twelfth Night and a gritty, modern Three Sisters. Think classics on acid with a good dose of heart, creativity, and modern technology thrown in.
A Midsummer Night's Dream's primary purpose is to highlight the ridiculousness of love, the madness it drives us to and the havoc it creates. Smashed walls, an interactive food fight, spontaneous rock music, and flying super heroes were all implemented by this creative team to bring Will's words to life.
After a rather over wrought but humorous introduction by Ed Gaughan as Peter Quince the curtain opened on a clinical looking stage. White boards covered the floor, wall, and ceilings and a gritty fountain (which occasionally oozed blue liquid) was the only decoration except for a live band. This motley crew ended up providing all the background effects you could have ever wanted out of such a production.
As you may have gathered already, this was not a production for Shakespeare purists. Certainly the young actors were vibrant, honest, and quite comfortable with the language, but they did not hesitate to break from the script, sometimes completely halting the narrative for an extended period of time. A drawn out gag involving Gary Oldman being stuck in an elevator resulted in Mark Benton (from the BBC's Waterloo Road) being pulled up on stage to play Bottom, shopping bags in hand. He was perfectly delightful and appropriately adorable in the role but this joke did more to pull the show down than anything; the audience was already bouncing in their seats and ready for the real action to begin.
The contrast between the fairy world and the world of humans in A Midsummer Night's Dream is traditionally distinguished visually. Filter put their own stamp firmly on this production by utilizing sound instead. The more extraneous fairies were "invisible" to us humans, so small that they were heard only when held up to a large microphone while actors in the background created their voices; perhaps these were Dream's first ever Liverpudlian fairies. This fairly simple joke had the audience in stitches while also maintaining the magic of the show without turning to cliche glitter. The sound department was also able to bring to life some of Shakespeare's songs with a rock twist, much to the audience's delight. Those who had come expecting classical theater remained firmly in their seats, but everyone else was dancing around with huge grins on their faces. Who knew that some old dead playwright could ignite so much joy?
But things only got weirder. By the curtain call almost every actor on stage was covered in paint, flour, and water. Ferdy Roberts alone, as a rather sinister Puck, seemed to have escape the mess. Perhaps it was because he had taken on the role of puppeteer. The power struggle between Oberon (Jonathan Broadbent) and Puck was quite strongly reversed in this production . This suited the respective actors quite well but I do wonder if it is a good idea to lose such iconic characters for the sake of originality. Don't get me wrong, their performances were some of the most memorable and well received, but in a more structured staging or in a less forgiving environment this switch up may not have slid by so smoothly.
The enthusiasm of the cast as a whole was infectious, this coupled with foot tapping music resulted in a quite enjoyable evening. I had a silly smile on my face for at least twenty four hours after leaving the theater. Highly recommended as a cure for the February blues!
Filter's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM runs at the Lyric Hammersmith until the 17th of March, tickets from 12 pounds.
http://www.lyric.co.uk/whats-on/production/a-midsummer-nights-dream/
