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Theatre listings >
A Midsummer Night's
Dream - Tour & Scottish Premiere .
Choreographer, Director & Costume Design - David Nixon.
Co-Director - Patrica Doyle.
Set and Lighting Design - Duncan Hayer.
Music - Felix Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms and a little of Prokofiev's
Romeo and Juliet.
Music Arrangement - John Longstaff.
Company - Northern Ballet Theatre Company (based in Leeds, England)
- Website.
Dancers - here .
Tour Dates and Times - here
.
Venue Seen to review at - Edinburgh Festival Theatre .
Dates for that venue - 24
- 28 Feb at 7:30pm Thu and Sat Mats at 2:30pm.
Run Time - 2hours 30mins including two 20 mins intervals.
Reviewer - Thelma Good.
Hilarious frantic lovers + fantastical logic.
A Midsummer Night's Dream - Northern Ballet Theatre.
Helena, Pippa Moore, entering the dream through the eye.
© Brian Slater 2004
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To get the most out of this imaginative production I have three bits
of advice, go in early, laugh if you find it funny and get a look at the
programme or read this review.
I loitered in the theatre bar before going in three minutes before the
performance was due to start. Entering the auditorium I heard the familiar
sound of the orchestra tuning up, but turning toward the stage I found
the company already there engaged in their daily routine of the Class.
This action introduces you to the tensions in the company including the
young couple who are in love, the young man who'd like to have the already
attached female's attention, and the other young woman who loves him but
who he makes plain he has no interest in.
She is not the only one nursing a seemingly hopeless attraction, there's
a stage carpenter, Darren Goldsmith, making a bit of an ass of
himself as he looks longingly at the prima ballerina. She, we discover
when the Artistic Director arrives, is torn between him and her successful
career. As they rehearse Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, he gives the prime
role to one of the younger women, the one with two suitors. Then comes
one of several moving moments when the displaced ballerina, Keiko Amemori,
dances out her knowledge that one day she will have to take off her ballet
shoes forever.
As the company go off on tour the rows between the prima ballerina and
her Artistic director and between the two suitors echo increasingly the
Shakespeare play the ballet draws on. Once in the Flying Scotsman they
settle down in their sleeper compartments for the journey from Kings Cross
to Edinburgh. The train could be a constraining place for ballet scenes
but by letting the dance happen in and outside the carriage - the Ballet
Master tap dances on the roof - David Nixon ensures the reality scenes
slide into the dream.
The second act has the train turned upsidedown coming out of a huge eye,
its passengers metamorphosed into the Shakespearean Dream. The alliances
and misalliances of Helena, Hermia, Lysander and Demetrius are fractured
and fostered by a mischievous Puck played with all the essence of that
sprite Robin Goodfellow by Christian Broomhall. Stumbling also
into the dreamscape are the Stage Managers, Nathalie Leftwich makes
an excellent Ms Quince, the very camp Wardrobe Master, Steven Wheeler,
and the carpenter. They're rehearsing a comic OTT version of Romeo and
Juliet when Puck wreaks more havoc with a ass's head.
It all gets wild and extraordinary with fairies, hilarious frantic lovers
and the fantastical logic of the somnolent state underscored by our awareness
of the disharmonies and thwarted desires of the sleeping ballet company.
There are some wonderfully comic moments, translating Shakespeare's quarreling
lovers into dynamic physical form and a well developed Bottom (check out
his codpiece!) has a marvelous dance and also audibly satisfies his Fairy
Queen. Then in the final act the reconciliations in the dreaming company
are echoed as they wake up on the arriving train. In the final scenes
after their performance the effects of the dream linger, with Bottom's
dance picked up by all the company as they celebrate the triple engagements.
© Thelma Good 23 February 2004. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Cast: Main Cast seen on 24 February at Edinburgh
Festival Theatre.
Theseus - Jonathan Byrne Ollivier, Hippolyta - Keiko Amemori, Hermia -
Nicola Cross, Helena - Pippa Moore, Lysander - Adam Temple, Demetrius
- Christopher Hinton-Lewis, Puck - Christian Broomhall, Bottom - Darren
Goldsmith, Wardrobe Master - Steven Wheeler, Stage Manager - Nathalie
Leftwich and Assistant Stage Manager - Hannah Bateman.
Tour Details of Northern Ballet Theatre's production
of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Tour begins
24 -28 Feb at Edinburgh, Festival Theatre 0131 529 6000
17 - 27 March at London, Sadler's Wells 020 7863 8000
20 - 24 April at Sheffield, Lyceum Theatre 0114 249 6000
28 April - Sat 1 May at Milton Keynes Theatre 01908 606090
18 - 22 May at Woking, New Victoria Theatre 01483 54590
Tour ends
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