Midsummer with an Indian twist

(Photos: Tristam Kenton)

I went into this touring production of Midsummer Night's Dream (Sat Oct 25), directed by Tim Supple and featuring an all-Indian/Sri Lankan cast, with high expectations: the British press gave glowing, near ecstatic reviews of the production's stagings in the UK, where it was presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company no less. Commissioned by the British Council in India (and originally staged there), the production is performed in no less than six South Asian languages - Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil, and Sinhalese - as well as the original Shakespearean English. Surtitles fill in the gaps where the audience might not understand the language. The staging is highly athletic and visual, with the cast clambering over the jungle-gym of a set, swinging back and forth on strips of silk from the ceiling, and fighting and climbing over each other in the pit of sand that makes up the stage floor.

It all looked spectacularly promising, especially since the play's romp in the forest could lend itself to such spectacular interpretations. Nevertheless, what I saw at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven was decidedly less exciting than what they all apparently saw across the pond in Stratford-upon-Avon. (One thing to consider: the in-the-round Rose Theater in Stratford is much more intimate and involving than the vast, three-level, 1600-seat proscenium stage in New Haven. Perhaps the visceral impact was lost on me.) The use of the language and subtitles was inconsistent and hard to follow, even considering my prior familiarity with the play. There were some moments of interesting staging, like when Puck sets up poles around the playing space and scampers between the quarreling lovers with a ball of string to create a messy web for the lovers to weave their way through. Or when Titania curls herself into a piece of red curtain hanging from the sky when she goes to sleep. But overall, I thought the whole thing was felled by inconsistent acting and not very much clarity in the action. Stuff just sort of happened all over the place, with not much purpose.

And here's another thing, with Midsummer itself. I've never seen a production or movie where the mechanical's play at the end of the show does not fail to completely kill the entire evening. The plot grinds to a halt, I get bored for twenty minutes, then leave the theater not so happy. Does this usually happen? Has anyone seen a good production where the play-within-the-play wasn't boring? I find myself enjoying ballet versions of Midsummer much more, where the focus is on the lovers and on Titania, and there's no mechanical business at the end!