Puck is an assassin in a tutu and Theseus is a murderous thug. In Headlong's deliciously macabre dramatisation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for midwinter audiences, director Holly Race Roughan extracts all the menace from Shakespeare’s “fairy play”, deftly chopping up and juggling the text to underscore the violence that frames the woodland escapism.
When we enter the Sam Wanamaker Theatre, we are lulled into a false sense of ease as the music director and pianist, Richie Hart, plays Christmas carols as meditatively as if he were performing the Goldberg Variations. Then a percussive crash cuts through the seasonal cosiness – changing the mood as decisively as an electric shock – as Sergio Vares’ sinister Puck (pictured below) walks onto the stage in a dinner jacket and tutu, from which he casually extracts and eats a banana, daring us to laugh.
The opening speech is culled from Act V, “Now it is the time of night/That the graves all gaping wide,/Every one lets forth his sprite,” heightening the sense that his mission is more vampiric than mischievous. Lingering unease remains even as the kitchen staff erupt through the doors, setting up the table as if for an aristocratic dinner party.
Other recent productions have strongly emphasised the undertones of rape and repression in Theseus’ “courtship” of Hippolyta, “I wooed thee with my sword/And won thy love doing thee injuries,” he declares in the original opening scene. Where Nicholas Hytner’s production at The Bridge Theatre – with Gwendoline Christie – made the Athenian scenes reminiscent of A Handmaid’s Tale, here, Race Roughan takes that a step further. Heddyd Dylan’s elegant Hippolyta dashes onto the stage with a knife before hiding under the table. When Theseus (Michael Marcus) enters, he hauls her out and threatens her brutishly with a gun as she gazes back, wiped out by repulsion and terror.
This is Athens as a violent dictatorship, a regime of fear that provokes extreme behaviour from all those struggling to survive it. The rude mechanicals – who turn out to be the kitchen staff – deploy their own brand of outrage as they snort cocaine while planning their entertainment for Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding. Danny Kirrane’s Bottom (pictured centre, below) seems initially oblivious to any oppression as he blithely interrupts Theseus and Hippolyta with snippets of Shakespeare sonnets. Yet in a strikingly observed dynamic, he is the character who really feels Puck’s presence like a knife, visibly wincing every time he enters the room.
The bitter elegance continues as the characters escape into the woods, with Max Johns’ minimal white set framing the scenes as a classical ballet. Titania (also played by Dylan) and the fairies – who are played by the lovers – are dressed in black tutus, while Marcus’s Oberon has the garb of a leading man in his green silk jacket and white tights.
Throughout this part of the play the dark humour drips as much into the music as the rearrangement of the text. There’s a stunning moment when Pria Kalsi’s “child” stares at the motionless Puck standing in the snow as Alice Barron’s violin plays a lyrical, minor version of Frosty the Snowman. Beyond this both David Olaniergun – Lysander, and Lou Jackson – Demetrius, prove to be accomplished pianists. As Titania’s fairies, they deliver wry versions of Billy Eilish’s Bad Boy and Robby Williams’ Angels, while Titania reclines, accepting their performances as a homage.
Both Tiwa Lade’s Hermia and Tara Tijani’s Helena distinguish themselves by giving as good as they take, with Tijani especially cleverly managing to twist Helena’s most self-loathing passages by physically asserting dominance over Demetrius even as she curses her own shortcomings. When the mayhem explodes in the forest, and the women find themselves pitted against each other, they release their insults with the force and humour of a rap battle. By contrast Dylan’s Titania is elegant and quietly, effortlessly controlling those around her. Fascinatingly when she becomes Hippolyta again, she comes closest to losing control when she sees Bottom appearing in Pyramus and Thisbe, patently valuing his humanity over the ice-pick rage of Theseus sitting next to her.
For those who are looking for something dark and bitter to offset the season’s relentless feelgood tones, this is a sharply beguiling production, full of wit and vigour. Some might condemn it for trying too hard to shock, but there’s nothing we see on stage that isn’t in a text that I, personally, find more fascinatingly disturbing each time I read it. The Tarantino-style ending certainly makes jaws drop, yet there are plenty of real-life tyrants who would not hesitate to deal with outspoken individuals as callously as Marcus’s king does. Go, and bank on a wild time – it’s credible, clever, and you’ll never look at a banana in the same way again.
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