A Mid Summer Night’s Dream is Black Swan’s annual Shakespearean production for Perth audiences.

Shakespeare wrote most of his known works between 1589 and 1613, however there will always be scholarly debate surrounding the question ‘was Shakespeare the only writer of all his known plays?’ Nevertheless, Shakespeare’s plays are still alluring audiences and A Mid Summer Night’s Dream is no exception.

The play is soft, gentle and clever, a stylish mixture of romance, fairy magic, and comic scenes. It is a production where most of the fun comes during a long night in the forest, where the mischievous fairy Puck smears the eyes of sleeping lovers with a magic potion from flowers, causing them to adore the first person they see upon awakening. A Mid Summer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most famous and well loved plays, and in England’s late 16th century it was one of the first plays to explore the everyday juxtaposed with the impossible world of fairy fantasy, influencing playwrights and theatre makers ever since.

Black Swan brings A Mid Summer Night’s Dream to a mixed audience in the newly established Heath Ledger Theatre at Perth’s State Theatre Centre, and sitting in the audience one can not help but get the feeling of taking part in an elite experience. The Heath Ledger Theatre is magnificent and grand with a traditional proscenium arch, seating up to 575 spectators.

The two main settings of the play are a Court and a Forest, and the stage’s technological apparatus assist in transporting the audience’s imagination via an elevating platform where once there was a hole in the ground to become a full moon in a twinkling night sky. The stage is further embellished with soft gauze veils for the actors to enter through and move behind with a floor that is covered in rich, blooming flowers to tumble, sit and move about on.

The costumes (Alicia Clements) were a mixture of modern with period elements such as the male mortal characters dressed in militant-like garments with wide collars and tailored trousers. The female characters such as Hermia (Adriane Daff) and Helena (Elizabeth Blackmore) were dressed stiffly, corseted and feminine. Nick Bottom (Luke Hewitt) and his common-folk friends were dressed in similar colours but representing the trade in which they worked. Whereas, the fairy Queen, Titania (Alison Van Reeken) was cloaked in an off-white delicate and flowing wedding dress representing the moon with Oberon (Kenneth Ransom) clothed in lush greens and rustic browns looking very dishevelled and earth-like.

The lighting by Graham Walne and Trent Suidgeest effectively enhanced the pastel colours of each flower and bush that were scattered throughout the stage and inside the pond-like mound. The deliberate punctuation of various sound effects (Ash Gibson Greig) reminded me of a giant breathing down my neck, enticing the audience’s imagination to ponder the eerie world of fairies, and the scary feelings associated with being lost in the Forest on a dark night.

Even though Kate Cheery’s directional and casting choices were often safe such as the casting of the female roles there were moments of imaginative direction. The actors were obviously getting back to the basics such as exploring Shakespeare’s original use of language in all its fullness. Additionally, the comic timing and deliberate Naturalist acting gestures by Peter Quince (Michael Loney) and Nick Bottom (Hewitt), where every line required a psychological gesture, was highly entertaining.

Nick Bottom’s (Hewitt) transformation from a commoner to a donkey is outrages. Hewitt masterfully peppered the mannerisms of a donkey by vibrating his hoof when being pampered and scratched by Titania and her fairies. Thisbe’s (Sam Longley) implementation of two imaginary Ninja swords in order to kill herself in a final death scene was unexpected and extraordinary. Seeing Puck’s (Stuart Halusz) anti-social and cheeky antics as he leapt like a two-footed gazelle between shrubs and bushes was also equally infectious.

Overall, the piece works well because of the cast’s ensemble approach. They all performed extremely hard, bringing a wonderful and entertaining night to young and old. If you’re new to Shakespeare then this show is a great introduction. If; however you an “old hand” then be prepared to wait, because the cast and the overall production is at its best in the second half.

Shakespeare’s A Mid Summer Night’s Dream is on from 7-22 May 2011 at the Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre of Western Australia. The production will also be available for regional audiences at 107 community resource centers across Western Australia (for anyone with a satellite dish and decoder via Optus-Aurora satellite).

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