A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Rose, Kingston, Thursday 11th March 2010

Now, Judi Dench is, of course, a National Treasure (TM). The Rose, Kingston (not to be confused with the barely excavated original on Bankside) was always guaranteed selling every seat in the house on this basis alone, but this staging is much more than a mere vehicle for the lady's talents.
First of all, the Rose is a charming venue. A copy of the fourth of London's public theatres, built by Philip Henslowe on Bankside in 1587, its enclosing circular layout lends a certain intimacy to performances, far more appropriate to the works of the Bard than the standoffish proscenium arch theatres of the West End. The Kingston Rose is very bare bones - towering metal girders instead of the Globe's kitschy authentique wood and marble. It's a very workmanlike theatre, and what romance it offers is entirely up to the production.
This one's got it in spades. An opening masque provides a speaking show whereby a court of players are given permission to perform by the ever regal Dench as Elizabeth I, who then translates herself into Titania. This is very much a play about patronage, and what might have seemed a clumsy paralleling of the Queen of England with the Queen of the Fairies is legitimised by the text. Titania is always surrounded by her fairy players, who sing and dance on her command, while Oberon is quite solitary, but for his henchman Puck. Our rude mechanicals too (with their obligatory regional accents - it's Liverpool this time) shine on the night, clinging to the hope of sixpence a day for life from Theseus.
The frantic lovers are all I'd hoped - they were always going to be somewhat overshadowed by the greatness of the leading lady, but there is talent here. Lysander and Demetrius are rather insignificant, comically interchangable, as Helena and Hermia are not, but this is and always has been a play about women's desires. Annabel Scholey does a fine job in the slight role of Hermia, but Rachael Stirling brings real depth to her portrayal of Helena with a husky-voiced desperation that hints at real self-loathing.
But it was always going to be about Dench. And so it is. There's a ripple of indrawn breath when she first appears as Titania, and it's a lot to live up to. But how could she not? This woman *breathes* Shakespeare. She's occasionally been criticised (I name no names) as a haughty sort of performer, and one suspects a hint of self-parody in her first addresses to Oberon, in front of their audience of fairies. She's a commanding presence, but never an overpowering one, and Charles Edwards' Oberon stands up very well to her, bringing a certain petulance to the part. There's something about his Oberon that suggests a boy grown to manhood too fast, not quite in control of his emotions, but very much in love with his queen.
I have not yet read a review of this staging that didn't make mention of Dench's age. I do not know why. As someone rather more down-to-earth than myself pointed out to me, they're not human. They're fairies. And one of Shakespeare's favourite themes is that we're all (whatever age) fools for love.
Titania certainly is. Beautifully, stupidly, madly in love. Dench's performance demonstrates how love transforms us - she blossoms in the company of Bottom and his asses head (which was lovely - whatever charity deals with donkeys should have passed round a hat - they'd have been coining it) and it only makes the tragedy of her love worse. Everyone who's ever watched in dismay as their best friend giggled in infatuation at the dreadful jokes of the latest dreadful lover knows this feeling. And Judi Dench has a lovely giggle. As plot-devices go, 'and then she falls in love with the donkey' is pretty far-fetched, but that giggle clinches it. She's head-over-heels.
The verse speaking from the whole cast is impeccable. Peter Hall has long been noted for his respect for Shakespeare's lines, for leaving them be. There's no running on of lines over the long speeches, and rhymes are allowed the space they deserve. It pays off in that the whole play breathes - it isn't overworked, and there's no hint of actorliness even in the soliloquies. It lends new comedy to Puck (a delightfully clowning, loose-limbed Reece Ritchie), who got laughs for lines I've never heard an audience enjoy so much before.
I've seen A Midsummer Night's Dream more times than any other play. I've seen some absolute shockers, and I've seen some I thought were perfect. This was better. This one proves it. The play really is the thing.

Fanfare please...

Alarums and Excursions is dead chuffed to announce that it has got its sticky fingers on a pair of tickets for (the completely sold out) A Midsummer Night's Dream, at the Rose Theatre, Kingston, starring the inestimable Judi Dench. Much excitement!