Review of A Midsummer Night’s Dream – A nightmarish scene that brings roaring monstrous currents to the surface | A Midsummer Night’s Dream

pIt snatches the lovers’ breath from their bodies. They stop mid-sentence, floating under his spell, lanterns lighting up in the freezing night. Sergio Varès’s mischievous clown, dressed half in a tuxedo and half in a tutu, has chaos coursing through his veins. In this winter co-production between Headlong and The Globe, comedy and horror go hand-in-hand, as director Holly Race Roughan conjures a nightmarish vision of Shakespeare’s classic dream.

Varys’s raven-like Puck, a clever shape-shifter, may be the face of dark deeds in this cold scene, but Michael Marcus’s Oberon is the vengeful controller, his every action designed to get his hands on the young girl (Priya Kalsi) in Titania’s care. By shifting the show’s center of gravity around this change, Rogan brings the play’s brutal undercurrents to the surface.

The dispute between the Fairy King and Queen over the stolen child has shaken the seasons like a snowball. This archetypal summer presentation flows seamlessly into a winter’s tale on Max Jones’s crisp white set, candles flickering overhead. Dressed in heavy, luscious furs, the lost lovers jump at each other’s throats at every opportunity, Demetrius (Lou Jackson) and Helena (Tara Tijani) engage in an aggressive and sexy power game, while a softer, sweeter love moves between Lysander (David Olaneragon) and Hermia (Tiwa Laide).

With magic in the air, C.S. Lewis’s The White Witch may be about to stumble upon the stage. But this forest is already full, with our trained players and watchful fairies. The latter are evoked here as black-skirted ballerinas, and their plaintive renditions of pop songs are the only non-key note in this aesthetically assured production. The attentive restaurant staff act as our players, with Bottom, Danny Kieran’s head chef, frequently stealing the stage. His ass was given not pointy ears but a pair of cloven shoes, over which Puck wrestled, and which caused Dylan’s gothic Titania to fling herself onto his hooves.

When the players finally perform, all problems resolved and the marriage made, Rogan delivers a surprisingly sinister and bloody reinterpretation of the ending. By closing the distance between the worlds of reality and illusion, this terrifying ending offers a new and exciting interpretation of Bok’s apologetic epilogue. “If the shadows have offended us,” he says innocently, swinging his legs like a child and ignoring the wet spot of blood scattered across the pure white snow.